AlthoughGoogle Gemini(formerly Bard)has been available on the web for a while, the AI chatbot arrived as an app forAndroid smartphonesonly last week. But Google didn’t rest on its laurels with Gemini’s rebranding and launch,promising to roll out fixes quicklyby leveraging user feedback and adapting accordingly. We saw glimpses of that over the weekend as some regionsquietly picked up supportfor the mobile app. The Gemini team is back with an update on another change to the chatbot, involving a pop-up for people switching from Assistant to Gemini.
According to the Gemini product lead,Jack Krawczyk, Android users will now see an opt-in message when triggering Google Assistant. It’s unclear if this opt-in popup is similar to the one shown when Assistant users switched to Gemini (pictured below) last week.
The Google Gemini opt-in screen
Meanwhile, Krawczyk adds that the team is also looking to provide more clarity on the features currently available in Gemini and the ones that are still under development. This is important for first-time users of Gemini who may not know that some features, likereminders, routines, interpreter mode, or third-party music providers, aren’t supported by the chatbot. There’s some assurance from Krawczyk that Google is working on bringing those missing features to Gemini quickly.
We’re also learning that Gemini is making it to more regions (in English) as of this week, with the rollout expected to continue over the coming days. Japanese and Korean languages are coming next to Gemini, per Krawczyk, with additional regions and languages following later.
Google isn’t leaving iPhone users away from the Gemini madness, with a new toggle for the chatbot appearing within the Google app for iOS. Krawczyk said some tweaks to the existing models are also on the cards while encouraging users to continue offering feedback on their Gemini experience.
Despite beingofficiallylimited to the US initially, several users (including me) could download the Gemini APK over the weekend and get it to work, even as previous attempts to do so didn’t bear fruit. The basic Gemini experience is free on Android, but there’s anAdvanced versionfor $20/month with the Google One AI Premium plan. Google says Gemini Advanced is better in terms of “reasoning, following instructions, coding, and creative inspiration,” thanks to theUltra 1.0model. It also has the benefit of integrating with Workspace apps like Gmail and Docs, with more apps to be added in the future.
