A GOOGLE employee is urging Android phone owners to try a genius feature – and says you’ll want to try a mind “trick” to get the most out of it.
The Google insider told The Sun how he can’t imagine not using the clever tech anymore.
The Sun spoke to Google exec Serge LaChapelle about the AI-powered assistant[/caption]
It’s called Gemini Live, an upgraded version of Google’s virtual assistant.
The artificial intelligence helper uses your microphone and speakers, letting you have “natural, free-flowing conversation”.
And you can even interrupt what Gemini is saying – or change your mind mid-sentence.
The Sun spoke to senior Google exec Serge LaChapelle, who said you could even use it to beat the ‘Sunday Scaries’ – the weekend anxiety of going to work on Monday.
“I’ll say something like: I get the fear on Sunday evening. I get stressed and overwhelmed by thinking of the week ahead – and I’d love to learn how to relax or even do breathing exercise,” Serge said.
He demoed the feature to The Sun, and showed how Gemini Live would then guide you through breathing exercises to calm down.
And he was also able to butt in halfway through and ask for more detail.
But Google says it can be used for a lot more than just dealing with work stress.
You can brainstorm thoughts out loud, ask for gift ideas, plan events, or even make business plans, according to the search engine giant.
Students can use it to revise and even quiz themselves.
And you could even use it to rehearse for important moments – like if you’re giving a public speech, or getting ready for a job interview.
In fact, you can even ask it to help you get dressed.
“I was able to interrupt it. I was able to get a better answer. I was able to go deeper into it,” Serge told us.
“So I find it’s quite a fascinating way to interact with these AI agents.
“And one of the fascinating things is that you can also incorporate things from the real world into it.
“So for example: “I’ve got a big presentation next week, and I want to look young but confident. Could you help me build an outfit that doesn’t include anything of the colour green?”
“That’s one of the unique things with Gemini – that it can go and connect to the search engine.
“And it’s able to go get answers from real life.”
Serge said that this is one of the biggest breakthroughs for Gemini Live versus older styles of AI.
If you’d ever used an early smart speaker, you probably experienced the regular difficulty of getting it to do what you wanted.
Serge, a director of product management at Google, even admitted it was a problem with the company’s own early efforts.
“I think that we’re just starting to scratch the surface,” he said.
“I find with the normal assistants, like the Google Assistant or Alexa and those systems, it was quite frustrating.
“Because sometimes if you misspoke a little bit or you tripped up in your command, it would just screw everything up.
“And that made me a little bit more hesitant to use those interfaces.
“Now with this one – where you can interrupt – you can rephrase your sentence mid-sentence as you’re going.
These phones have gotten maybe too good, right? And we need to sort of wrangle them back in.
Serge LaChapelle
“It gets that. It works with you. And it won’t just latch on to the thing you might have misspoke.”
The problem, Serge admits, is getting people into the habit of actually using it.
He says that one of the problems is that people see using AI as a form of cheating.
Serge explained: “It’s almost a little bit like the calculator, right?
“When the calculator first appeared, proper people did not use a calculator, right?
“And it was kind of looked down upon – like ‘I don’t need this to get my work done’.
“But now, this is maybe the calculator or the search engine of this generation.”
The other difficulty is that people don’t know what they don’t know.
And so he thinks it’s important to use a mental “trick” of forcing yourself to use it – to break out of normal habits.
That way, you’ll be able to find ways that Google’s AI helper can assist you, that you might have otherwise missed.
“I don’t see myself being able to go back to two years ago where this wasn’t possible,” Serge told The Sun.
“I save a lot of time: I’m not saying I’m saving dozens of hours, but every day, there are small magic moments.
“The trick is how. I’ve had to train myself to make those moments happen.
“We all have to force ourselves a little bit, because it’s easier to just go on with life like it’s always been than to try something new.
“I think Gemini Live is a great way to get people to start using this a little bit every day.”
If you don’t like chatting out loud, that’s not a big problem either.
WHAT YOU NEED FOR GOOGLE GEMINI LIVE
Here’s Google’s official list…
- An Android phone or tablet.
- The Gemini mobile app, or Gemini as your mobile assistant. For now, Gemini Live isn’t available in the Gemini web app, Gemini in Google messages, or the Gemini tab in the Google app on iPhone.
- A personal Google account that you manage on your own. For now, Gemini Live isn’t available while signed in to a work or school Google account.
- Your first language in settings is a supported language.
- Be 18 or over.
Picture Credit: Google
The Gemini app on your Android phone works using regular text input – while the Gemini Live feature handles voice.
And for some tasks, the regular Gemini system might actually be more useful.
“With Gemini Live, it really right now is about conversations and asking it about the world around us,” Serge said.
“With the Gemini app proper, it can go and help you with your calendar, it can go help you find information much more quickly.
“If you send it a YouTube window, it has such a big context window and can put an hour’s video in its memory.
“And you can go ask it not just about the transcript, but about things happening – like physical things happening – in the video.
“One of the use-cases I never thought of: one of my colleagues here is blind. And he says: yeah, now I can understand what’s going on in the YouTube video.”
It might sound like it’s all a lot of tech – at a time when it feels like switching off has never been more important.
But Serge thinks that chatting to voice helpers is a great way to break free from tech.
By having more humanlike conversations with our gadgets, it can stop us from being stuck staring at screens all day.
“We get so many texts every day, so many interruptions, so many notifications. So many things happening: emails, calendar invites, files being shared with us.
“And having a tool like this tries to help us focus on what’s important.
“These phones have gotten maybe too good, right? And we need to sort of wrangle them back in.”
He added: “I think Gemini Live is one of the best examples of how this can become personal again – and where one of the trajectories for these kinds of tools is going to take us.”
