How to access Google’s new voice assistant

Gemini Live is as close as Google has gotten to the fantasy of a computer you can talk to. Announced at the official launch of the Pixel 9, Gemini Live is technically a voice mode for Google’s existing Gemini experience, but it’s far better than the old days of call and response with Google Assistant. The feature sounds natural, can be interrupted, and is pretty fast, which makes the whole thing more impressive.

The company originally teased the new voice mode at Google I/O 2024, as a similar, if less natural, answer to the updated voice mode OpenAI demoed earlier in 2024. Right now, Gemini Live is dedicated to conversation, it doesn’t provide visual answers, and it can’t access other Google services like Gmail or YouTube Music in the same way that normal Gemini can. It’s pretty clear Google thinks it could be a hit, something you talk to with your Pixel Buds, a new Nest speaker, and even an iPhone via a new Gemini app for iOS.

Whether or not you’ll find the feature useful requires trying it, and luckily, Google has made it relatively simple to start talking to Gemini Live right now. Here’s how to access Google’s new voice assistant on your phone.

How to talk to Gemini Live

Sign up for Gemini Advanced

Google’s Gemini Live feature is currently available in English, and can be used by anyone with the Gemini app and a Gemini Advanced subscription. Gemini Advanced uses Google’s more powerful Gemini Pro model and is designed to have a larger context window, meaning it can handle analyzing and working with larger quantities of data (the PDFs, images, and text you drag into its chat window).

Currently, the only way to subscribe to Gemini Advanced is through the Google One AI Premium plan, which costs $19.99 per month, and comes with other benefits like 2TB of storage and access to Gemini and other premium features in Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Provided you already have a Google account, you can sign up for the Google One AI Premium plan online or in the Google One app on your phone.

Access voice chat through the Gemini app

Once you’re subscribed, you can access Gemini Live inside the Gemini app for iOS or Android. Here’s how to use it:

1. Download or open the Gemini app.
2. Tap on the Gemini Live icon in the bottom right (a waveform with a sparkle) to start Gemini Live.
3. Agree to Google’s terms and conditions by tapping “Okay.”
4. Select a voice by swiping through Gemini Live’s 10 options and start chatting.

You’re able to ask Gemini questions like you normally would and can interrupt responses just by speaking or tapping the screen. Tapping on the red “X” at the bottom ends the Gemini Live chat and dumps you back into a Gemini text chat covering what you just talked about. Tapping the Hold button turns off your microphone in case you don’t want Gemini to respond. If you can get comfortable interrupting some of Gemini’s more verbose responses, Gemini Live can be quicker and easier than normal text chat.

Google has a glimmer of a next-generation voice assistant

It just needs to connect to more apps

Don’t expect Gemini Live to be perfect. Even if it feels more natural to talk to, the information it provides isn’t any less machine-generated to be inoffensive. The Gemini Live voices sound different, but there’s no personality to contend with. For right now, that doesn’t make it more useful than more general text-based chats, especially because Google hasn’t added a way for Gemini Live to access or control other apps and services, unlike Gemini.

Google Gemini

Gemini is Google’s premier AI assistant app for the Android operating system that can provide text responses to questions, generate and analyze images, and is now available on iOS.

But in Google’s hands, it suddenly feels like we’re closer to the Siri or Google Assistant that were originally imagined. A computer interface that you can talk to normally to get things done. Whether or not Google ever fully gets there, Gemini Live makes it feel like it’s possible. If you’d prefer to use ChatGPT, the AI’s existing Voice Mode is fairly similar to Gemini Live. And if you’re curious about an Apple-exclusive version of AI, Pocket-lint has coverage of the slow expansion of Apple Intelligence that’s worth digging in to.

FAQ

Q: Will Gemini Live be available on iOS?

Yes. You can currently access Gemini through the Google app on iOS and, according to Google’s blog announcing Gemini Live, “in the coming weeks [Gemini Live] will expand to iOS and more languages.”