Summary
- Google Gemini is gradually improving, with the AI chatbot now gaining a new voice on Android devices.
- This new female voice could be part of a test and is automatically enabled without user intervention.
- There’s no way to switch back to the previous voice right now, though that option could be added soon.
There’s a lot to love about the Google Gemini chatbot, but it’s not without its flaws. Despite Google’s best attempts to bridge the feature gap between Gemini and Assistant, the former still has some distance to cover. While basic features like timers and alarms are expected to be on the way, we have recently learned that Gemini could also get support for new voices, with the current setup only offering a single male voice. It now looks like Google has already begun rolling out this change to the Gemini app, albeit in a limited capacity.
While Gemini defaults to a text-only response, each result has a speaker icon on the top right that reads it out. The good folks over at 9to5Google found that results are now read out in a new female voice rather than the older male voice. I found that this experience is already live on my Android smartphone as well.
But as 9to5Google notes, there’s currently no way to revert to the previously available voice. This indicates that Google is still testing new voices for Gemini, with the latest addition possibly being one of the many that will be on offer. The rollout appears to be limited to just Android phones at the moment, with the Gemini experience on the web and iPhones still using the older voice.
In contrast to Gemini, Google Assistant lets users choose from 12 voices, each identified by a particular color. Given that Google wants to eventually replace Assistant with Gemini, we suspect the company will provide new voices in a similar pattern for the sake of familiarity.
Gemini is slowly catching up to Assistant
Although Google Gemini is not in a position to fully replace Assistant at the moment, work is underway to help users easily transition to the chatbot in the future. In addition to the timers and alarms that we touched on above, Gemini recently picked up the ability to respond to queries from the lock screen. While this is a useful addition to the chatbot, it still lacks some of the capabilities that are found in Assistant.
Google Gemini is also working on finally supporting Routines, one of the key features missing from the chatbot. This should bring many Assistant users to the Gemini fold, as the lack of routines has kept them from switching so far. Google Gemini could also get better on large-screen devices like foldables and tablets by letting users run two instances of the chatbot at the same time.