TheGoogle Geminimobile apparrived in the US last week, with the chatbot/experimental assistant nowgradually rolling outin other parts of the world. However, Google didn’t say much about its plans to bring Gemini to other devices,like earbudsand headphones. That mystery may have been solved now, with new evidence suggesting that Assistant-powered headphones could be next on the list to receive Google Gemini support.
A string found within the latest beta version of the Google app (v15.6) refers to the imminent arrival of Gemini on headphones. As9to5Googlecorrectly points out, earbuds/headphones are easier to trial-run since users will also have the paired smartphone as the backup option. Here’s the string in question:
To be clear, theGemini support pageclaims that multiple non-mobile devices, such as Smart Displays, thePixel Tablet, speakers, smartwatches, as well as “headphones and earbuds with Google Assistant built-in,” will continue to be powered by Google Assistant.
Nevertheless, this string is a great indicator that headphones with Assistant will be high up on the list of devices to get Gemini support sometime in the near future. There will be some challenges with an audio-only form of Gemini, especially when there’s a long response to the user’s query.
It’s also worth mentioning that Gemini stilllacks a handful of Google Assistant’s features. So even if the new AI chatbot eventually makes it to headphones, people who currently rely on Assistant to set up quick tasks, reminders, or play their favorite podcasts,wouldn’t be fully onboard.
In addition to the aforementioned string, 9to5 also spotted two new error messages that will presumably be shown when Gemini is down:
Too many requests in a short time period. Try again later
Gemini mobile app is getting more traffic than usual and is temporarily unavailable. Try again later
It’s not even been a week since Gemini went live, and Google is already making some changes and promising to improve the AI chatbotbased on user feedback. It’s not as perfect as we’d like it to be — and theconfusion around the brandingcertainly didn’t help — but the initial few days have been impressive for Gemini.
