Google Gemini tries out a second voice – Android Authority

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

TL;DR

How important to you is how your phone sounds? No, we dont mean the audio quality from its speakers (although that can be pretty important), but who youre talking to when youre interacting with your phones virtual assistant. Google Assistant lets you choose from between a dozen different voice profiles, with two new ones introduced just last year. But so far, with Googles new Gemini AI, youve only had a single voice to talk to. Now that situation is finally changing.

We first caught wind of development heading in this direction about a month ago, when we discovered Google working on a new settings option for its Android app. While it wasnt functional at the time, it appeared that Google was planning to give users the ability to choose between two voices and notably, this was all distinct from Assistant voice settings. Although this new addition being related to Gemini wasnt a slam dunk, it certainly seemed like one of the best theories we had at the time.

Fast-forward to today, and 9to5Google noticed that Gemini is suddenly speaking with a new voice. While Gemini sounded male before, the new voice is distinctly female. Were not sure if Google has pushed this change out universally, or is testing it in a more limited fashion, but we can confirm that we can hear Gemini using its new voice on our Android phones.

The ability to choose between multiple voices isnt a huge-huge deal, but its the sort of quality of life improvement that might get more users enthusiastic about giving Gemini a shot in the first place; right now the apps on-boarding is very much dominated by heres the Assistant stuff youre giving up, and just having the familiarity of being able to choose your preferred response voice could smooth that over the smallest bit. We dont know if we need another dozen to feel satisfied, but a couple more options (and definitely the ability to actively choose between them) couldnt hurt.

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Google Gemini tries out a second voice - Android Authority