Chrome for Android could be getting a really fun new feature, which would allow it to use AI-generated voices to create an informative podcast about any webpage you see.
As spotted on the r/google subreddit, Google Chrome for Android’s beta build contains an upgrade to the AI overview that reads aloud whatever page you’re on (via Android Authority). Rather than simply reading the page aloud, like the old AI overview would, this new feature uses the information on the webpage to create a podcast episode to tell you all about it.
Chrome will be able to make podcasts on the fly
As if your podcast lists weren’t full already
The feature was first spotted on the Google subreddit, courtesy of Leopeva64-2 and, later, Android Authority. Accessed through tapping the Listen to this page option in the side menu, the podcast takes a few seconds to load up before launching straight into the episode on, er, the Wikipedia article for Google Chrome.
The language is a little stilted and unnatural (hearing “ChromeOS” pronounced as “Chromie-O-S” will never not be odd), and the two presenters are clearly robotic and AI-generated, with odd sections that echo podcasts but feel out of place. But even so, it’s an impressive feat. Tapping another button will swap between the podcast version and the more traditional version, which simply uses one voice to read the webpage aloud.
This is an evolution of a Search Labs feature Google debuted earlier this month, which can summarize information directly from a Google search. In this case, it’s baked into the Chrome browser, and relies on you being on the page to begin with. Also, if the Reddit video above is a good representation of the enhanced feature, then it works very fast. Previously, it would take up to 40 seconds to build the “podcast”, whereas this was close to instant. In fairness, the Google search version would dig through multiple sites to build its podcast, while the one above only needed to read through a single webpage.
It’s unclear exactly what the point of this is, though. Reading a webpage aloud has obvious implications for accessibility, but was anyone asking for pages to be summarized in the form of a podcast? It feels a little as if this is being added for the sake of it, not because it’s particularly useful. Still, it’s a fun feature if nothing else.
