Later this year, Google will enhance Gemini Live with Project Astracomputer vision technology that the company announced at a developer conference in May. It will let you exploit your phone’s camera app and ask Gemini about objects you’re looking at in the real world in real time. Imagine walking past a concert poster and asking it to write down the dates on your calendar and set a reminder to buy tickets.
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Our experience with voice assistants has been largely transactional so far, so when I spoke with Gemini Live, I found initiating a conversation with a bot to be a bit awkward. It’s a large step beyond asking Google Assistant or Alexa for the weather forecast, to raise the blinds, or whether the dog can eat celery. You might have some extra information here and there, but it wasn’t built around the flow of the conversation like Gemini Live is.
Hsiao tells me she likes to exploit Gemini Live in her car on her way home from work. She started talking about the Paris Olympics and Celine Dion singing at the opening ceremony. “Can you tell me a little about the song she sang?” Hsiao asked. The AI responded with the origin of the song, the artist, and its meaning, and after a few conversations, Hsiao discovered that Celine Dion could sing in Chinese.
“I was so surprised,” she says. “But it’s just an example of how you can learn something; it’s an interaction with technology that people couldn’t have before, that kind of curiosity and exploration through conversation. It’s just the beginning of where we’re going with the Gemini assistant.”
In my demo, I asked Gemini what I should have for dinner. He asked if I wanted something lightweight and refreshing or a hearty meal. We continued talking and when Gemini suggested shrimp, I lied and said I was allergic to shrimp, to which he recommended salmon. I said I didn’t have salmon. “You could always grill chicken breasts and toss them in a salad with grilled slaw and a light vinaigrette.” I asked for the recipe and he started going through the step-by-step instructions. I stopped, but I can come back to the Gemini app later to find the recipe.