Gemini Live: Google’s ChatGPT rival

At its Pixel 9 event, which saw Google showcase the new Pixel 9 series, complete with built-in AI features like call summaries, integration with Google Calendar, Gmail, and G-drive, photo reimagining, and weather updates, Google launched Gemini Live, a voice chat feature that allows for natural, free-flowing conversations.

Gemini Live is available now, to all Gemini Advanced users (OpenAI’s voice feature is still in testing, with a small group of users). It has 10 different voices (OpenAI’s feature only has 3) with names like Lyra, Ursa, Capella, and Orbit to choose from, which have all been trained using actors’ voices. Google has also stopped it from singing or mimicking any other voice outside of these 10, to stop copyright issues (like OpenAI faced with its “Sky” / Scarlett Johansson voice).

It responds to questions within seconds, can handle interruptions, pause conversations and come back to them later, and remember previous chats, picking up where it left off, all without being button activation, as it can run in the background, even when the phone is locked.

In a demo, when it was asked to find “family-friendly wineries near Mountain View with outdoor areas and playgrounds nearby,” a multi-faceted question that other voice assistants, like Siri, would struggle to comprehend, it successfully recommended a perfect spot.  

However, it can't yet understand emotional intonation, which OpenAI’s voice feature can, and it can’t interpret and use video to complete complex tasks, which Google said would be a feature when it first announced the imminent arrival of Gemini Live, back in May, at its I/O developer conference.

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