What is Gemini Live?

We already know about Google Gemini artificial intelligence. Now, Google has announced Gemini AI will be more tightly integrated with its apps, starting with Gemini Live for Android. So what is Gemini Live? How much does it cost? When can you get it? All will be answered.

What is Gemini Live?

Gemini Live offers users a way of interacting with Gemini, Google’s family of multimodal large language models, using voice prompts or, as the company puts it, having “free-flowing conversations” with the AI.

Google is pitching Gemini Live as a digital smart assistant that can help with mundane tasks or offer inspiration to more jaded users. It suggests using Gemini Live to brainstorm a new career, for example.

Google has also added ten new voices for Gemini to speak with, with tones such as ‘bright’ or ‘calm’. For those finding their AI-powered conversations a little verbose, Gemini Live can be interrupted in the middle of a response if the user needs any clarification or extra information (or just if they’re getting bored).

You can also choose from ten different voices, with a handful in the video above.

Related reading: Google Translate doubles language support thanks to AI

How much is Gemini Live?

To get access to Gemini Live, users will need a Gemini Advanced subscription – currently £18.99 a month in the UK, $20 in the US and $30 in Australia.

Gemini Live is available immediately to Advanced subscribers. Simply download the app. However, it’s initially only on Android and in English. Google says more languages and iOS versions of the service will be launched “in the coming weeks”.

More apps with Gemini built in

Alongside Gemini Live, Google has unveiled Gemini extensions for several of its apps, including Keep, Tasks, Utilities and Calendar.

The extensions will allow Gemini to interact with the apps to provide what Google describes as “more helpful responses to your prompts”. In the case of its Calendar app, Google notes that users will, for example, be able to use it to take a photo of a flier for a concert, find out whether they’re free on that day, and then set a reminder to buy gig tickets.

Google also said it will be expanding Gemini integration with Google Home, Phone, and Messages apps in the near future.

Gemini Live vs Google Assistant

Gemini represents a step up in functionality compared to Google’s original digital helper, Google Assistant, which debuted eight years ago.

However, Google has highlighted that its non-AI assistant may have an advantage over Gemini when it comes to speed: according to the tech giant, Gemini may be slower than Google Assistant for simple queries, as it has to consult “large and sophisticated AI models”. It says the company is working on improving Gemini’s speed.

Brief history of Gemini

The first version of Gemini, Google’s family of multimodal large language models, was released in December 2023.

Initially, Google made three tiers of Gemini available. Nano was designed to be used on devices. It created Pro to tackle “highly complex” tasks. And Ultra… was somewhere in between. 

The three were joined this year by Flash, a lightweight Gemini model, for use cases that need a low response speed.

Subsequently, Google debuted Gemma, a separate family of open-source AI models, developed in a similar vein to Gemini and aimed at researchers and developers. Gemma 2.0 was launched last month.

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