Summary

  • Google is working on improving Gemini’s response time to compete with Google Assistant on Android.
  • Gemini could soon implement a feature similar to ChatGPT’s Voice Conversation or Google Assistant’s Continued Conversation, allowing for seamless interactions with users.
  • The functionality isn’t live yet, but latent code for the feature was discovered, pointing to a rollout in the not-so-distant future.



Google constantly tries to improve Gemini to make it more appealing than Google Assistant. One clear advantage Assistant has over Gemini is that it has a better response time, but Google is working on making it much faster on Android. Its next improvement could be related to ChatGPT’s Voice Conversation feature, which allows users to continue the conversation with voice commands. It’s a feature we had already seen with Google Assistant — even on smart speakers — so it seems like it would find an ideal home with Gemini.


Lower part of a phone showing Google's Gemini prompt on Android

Related

Gemini’s Android app could soon summarize PDFs and other documents for you

A flag shows how AI would be able to break down files on mobile

PiunikaWeb reports that Google is working on a new conversation mode to give users a more natural experience when interacting with Gemini (via AssembleBug). Just like the Continued Conversation feature in Google Assistant (which can be enabled in settings), you won’t have to manually trigger the digital assistant whenever you want to ask a follow-up question, if early indications found in the Gemini app’s coding come to fruition. This is possible because the mic re-opens after each response, allowing a smooth flow in the conversation.

Google-Gemini-Conversation-Mode
Source: PiunikaWeb

Source: PiunikaWeb




Keep the conversation going

AssembleDebug was able to activate some of the latent code discovered in the Gemini app to get a preview of the conversation mode UI. For now, tapping the icon at the bottom left only crashes the assistant. AssembleBug noticed that the button was for this upcoming feature since the crash logs mentioned the words CONVERSATION_MODE. Google has yet to confirm when the feature will roll out to all users.

Google is ensuring that users get all the information they need to prompt Gemini, so they feel more comfortable with it in their day-to-day conversations. Besides conversation mode, users can also look forward to the Gemini Android app summarizing PDFs and other documents. Google doesn’t want to keep Gemini limited to the web and mobile devices, as we’ve seen evidence the company could add it to Chrome’s Omnibox — users would only need to type @gemini to get the answers they need. We’ll likely hear lots more about Gemini at Google’s big event, Google I/O, on May 14.