Google’s Gemini Live is now available for free on Android

By Andrew Tarantola Published September 12, 2024

Person holding a phone with Google Gemini Live being shown. — Bryan M. Wolfe / Digital Trends

A month after debuting as a subscriber-only feature, Google’s Gemini Live is rolling out to more of the chatbot’s users free of charge, the company announced Thursday.

We're starting to roll out Gemini Live in English to more people using the Android app, free of charge. Go Live to talk things out with Gemini, explore a new topic, or brainstorm ideas. Keep an eye out for Gemini Live in the Gemini app 👀 pic.twitter.com/0VL0c7E6Gw

— Google Gemini App (@GeminiApp) September 12, 2024

Gemini Live is Google’s answer to OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode for ChatGPT. It allows users to interact directly and conversationally with the chatbot, in real time, using spoken natural language prompts rather than text-based inputs.

Recommended Videos

To access it, open the Gemini app and click on the Sparkle icon in the lower-right corner of the screen. Once you’ve finished conversing with the AI, you can either click the Stop button or simply say, “stop” and the system will then generate a transcript of what you talked about. That transcript will appear in your chat history list for later review.

The feature does have some limitations. For example, it is currently available only to English-language Android users and cannot be used on iOS devices or with Gemini’s other Workspace integrations like YouTube Music or Gmail, though that functionality is expected to arrive at some point in the future.

OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode, on the other hand, is still in beta and has only been made available to select ChatGPT Plus subscribers. OpenAI has stated that the feature will roll out to its entire subscriber base in the coming months, but has yet to set a date. ChatGPT users will need to shell out for the $20-per-month subscription just to be considered for the rollout, and there’s no guarantee on when they’ll actually gain access.

Both Google and OpenAI are reportedly working to integrate the mobile device’s camera with their live voice chat features, enabling your phone to access additional multimodal context when answering your spoken queries, though neither company has set a specific date for their respective releases.

If you want to check out Gemini Live for yourself, download the Gemini App from Google Play.

Topics

Andrew Tarantola

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Andrew Tarantola is a journalist with more than a decade reporting on emerging technologies ranging from robotics and machine…

Computing

ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode now has a ‘better personality’

ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode on a smartphone.

If you find that ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode is a little too keen to jump in when you’re engaged in a conversation, then you’ll be pleased to know that the latest update should bring an end to such unwanted interruptions.

OpenAI post-training researcher Manuka Stratta said in a video posted on Monday that the update gives Advanced Voice Mode a “better personality,” adding that the AI-powered tool will now “interrupt you much less ... [and] because it interrupts you less, you'll be able to have more time to gather your thoughts and not feel like you have to fill in all the gaps and silences all the time.”

Computing

You can now have secret chats with Google’s Gemini in incognito mode

Launching Gemini Deep Research query on Chrome desktop.

You can now have a quick chat with Gemini on your web browser without having to sign in first. And, to speed up the process, the Gemini website even takes you directly to the chat window instead of showing you a landing page first.

This move, spotted by 9To5Google, is pretty smart as it allows unconvinced users to try out the product with no strings attached. With any luck, they'll enjoy the experience and decide to sign up to get access to more of the features.

Computing

I saw Google’s Gemini AI erase copyright evidence. I am deeply worried

Gemini Advanced on the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold.

Update: Google has responded to Digital Trends’ queries. The story has been updated with company’s statement below.
The rise of generative AI has been a fairly messy process, especially from fair usage ethics and copyright perspective. AI giants are inking deals with publishers to avoid legal hassles, while at the same time, they are embroiled in copyright tussles in courts in multiple countries.
As the ravenous appetite for training AI on user data grows, we might be in for another ethical conundrum. Multiple users on X and Reddit have shared demonstrations of how Google’s latest Gemini 2.0 series AI model can remove watermarks from copyright-protected images.
Going by the before/after samples of images, it seems Gemini is doing a fairly good job of removing the watermarks. Notably, it’s not only erasing those banner-style watermarks, but also fairly complex overlays with design and stylized text elements.
https://x.com/ajiteshleo/status/1901484196972945872?s=61
The model in question is the Gemini 2.0 Flash, which was released earlier this year and got a reasoning upgrade, as well. It is worth noting here that you can not remove the watermark if you are using the mobile or desktop version of the Gemini 2.0 Flash model. Trying to do so returns a message like this:
“Removing watermarks from images without the explicit permission of the copyright holder is illegal in most countries. It is important to respect the copyright laws and intellectual property rights. If you want to use an image with a watermark, you should contact the copyright holder and ask for permission.”
You can, however, try and remove the watermark from images in the Google AI Studio. Digital Trends successfully removed watermarks from a variety of images using the Gemini 2.0 Flash (Image Generation) Experimental model.

It is a violation of local copyright laws and any usage of AI-modified material without due consent could land you in legal trouble. Moreover, it is a deeply unethical act, which is also why artists and authors are fighting in court over companies using their work to train AI models without duly compensating them or seeking their explicit nod.

How are the results?
A notable aspect is that the images produced by the AI are fairly high quality. Not only is it removing the watermark artifacts, but also fills the gap with intelligent pixel-level reconstruction. In its current iteration, it works somewhat like the Magic Eraser feature available in the Google Photos app for smartphones.
Furthermore, if the input image is low quality, Gemini is not only wiping off the watermark details but also upscaling the overall picture. .
https://x.com/kaiju_ya/status/1901099096930496720?s=61
The output image, however, has its own Gemini watermark, although this itself can be removed with a simple crop. There are a few minor differences in the final image produced by Gemini after its watermark removal process, such as slightly different color temperatures and fuzzy surface details in photorealistic shots.

nproxy.org