Few things trigger my skepticism reflex faster than when a company starts talking about how it’s integrating AI into its products. With artificial intelligence becoming the buzzword of the moment, many AI announcements and demos seem to have a whiff of “oh yeah, us too,” whether or not those announcements or demos have any real value.
It's become a bit of an occupational hazard for those of us who write about phones for a living, because it seems like you can't launch a phone these days without rattling off a laundry list of AI capabilities, too many of which are glorified sleight-of-hand tricks that provide little lasting value to anyone actually using the phone.
So when last week’s Made by Google event kicked off with a discussion about its Gemini AI model and what it means for mobile devices, I felt my brain actively staging a sit-down strike. “Here we go again,” I found myself thinking, as I prepared to check out a bunch of features that looked cool on a demo stage but had very little practical use.
To my surprise, when the event ended and I got a chance to see additional demos up close, I was pretty impressed with what Google is doing with Gemini and what it means for devices like the Pixel 9 models that go on sale later this week. While I still have my doubts about the overall promise of AI on mobile devices, I would have to be stubborn enough not to admit that many of Gemini’s features will help you do a lot more with your smartphone in ways that would have seemed unimaginable not so long ago.
Towards multimodal
Gemini is multimodal, even when installed on a mobile device. That means it can recognize more than just text messages: it can also analyze images, code, and videos, and extract information from those sources. And that allows the Gemini assistant on Pixel devices to do some pretty impressive things.
For example, in one demo, a woman was able to use a handwritten reminder about the Pixel 9’s August 22 release date to have Gemini create a task reminding her to pre-order the phone, while also adding that date to her calendar. Yes, you could do these things on your own without any input from a digital assistant. But that would mean dropping what you’re doing to launch at least two apps so you could manually enter your reminders and events. Gemini takes care of that without interrupting your flow.
Another demo from the Made By Google event itself had Gemini watch a YouTube video about Korean restaurants, then compile a list of the different foods into a notes app. As someone who watches a lot of cooking videos, I appreciate that this can save me time: instead of having to write down ingredients or preparation steps myself, which inevitably means going back to the video to make sure I didn’t miss anything, I can put Gemini to work. This allows me to focus on the content of the video, knowing that a digestible recording will be waiting for me when I’m done watching it.
Useful AI
These examples are interesting because they show how AI can save you time by taking tedious tasks off your plate. Device makers make mistakes when they translate this time-saving philosophy to tasks that require more creativity. Google, with its much-maligned Olympics ad featuring AI-generated fan mail, is no stranger to this kind of misstep.
Aside from these glitches, it seems like Google really understands that Gemini will work best when it removes the obstacles that keep you from getting things done. Take Gemini with the search features that Google plans to add to Gemini Advanced in the coming months. With this search feature, you'll be able to ask Gemini to search for specific information online. In the demo I saw, Gemini was put to work searching for after-school programs for kids interested in martial arts.
Before you begin, Gemini with Research will present you with an action plan that lists the items it plans to look for, which you can review and edit. It then scours the far corners of the web, digging deep to find related information that it can incorporate into a report that’s available to you via Google Docs. You even get links in this report to the online sources Gemini found.
It’s a pretty appealing approach to online research, especially since Gemini can probably work faster and more thoroughly than I can to gather information. But I’m not totally sidelined by the AI: I can refine the search plan by making suggestions about what to look for, and I can track down the information I get to make sure it matches my criteria. Rather than lazily handing off an entire task to Gemini, I’m letting it do the grunt work, so I can ultimately make informed decisions.
Someone you can talk to
I also like the Gemini Live feature that was introduced at Made by Google and is rolling out to Gemini Advanced subscribers right now. It’s the voice component of Google’s chatbot, and it’s designed to be natural and conversational—music to the ears of those of us who have struggled to communicate with voice assistants like Siri because we used the wrong word or didn’t clarify our context enough.
Gemini Live can also help you use the voice assistant as a brainstorming tool. You can ask Gemini a question (for example, about things to do this weekend) and the assistant will start offering you ideas. Since you can interrupt it at any time, you can explore an idea that seems promising further. Gemini understands the context of the conversation, so questions can be informal and spontaneous.
Google Gemini Live… voices sound very natural. Here are some of the options #MadeByGoogle pic.twitter.com/YJWGEuqSAXAugust 13, 2024
I'd have to try Gemini Live myself to be truly convinced, but the conversational aspect is appealing. Much like the ability to refine parameters in Gemini with search, this strikes me as a more collaborative use of AI, where the chatbot responds to your feedback and refines the information presented to your specifications.
Gemini Outlook
I still have some doubts about AI on phones in general and Gemini in particular. Features like image generation just don’t interest me, and there’s always the risk that a particularly lazy or unethical user could take the output of a tool like Gemini with Research and pass it off as their own. And of course, we all need to make sure that the promised privacy safeguards remain in place.
But while my main gripe with AI features on phones is that they too often feel like glorified sleight of hand, that’s certainly not the case with what I saw Gemini do this week. Google is clearly building a tool that helps you do even more with your phone. And that’s reason enough to be excited about the possibilities.