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Gemini: The Android Chatbot That Does More Than You Think
Google has been working on a new AI technology called Gemini, which is designed to be an Android chatbot that can help you with various tasks on your smartphone. Gemini is not just a fancy tool for creating images, writing code, or scanning products. It can also do some of the mundane things that you might need to do on your phone, such as finding emails, booking a ride, or turning on dark mode.
How Gemini Can Help You With Practical Tasks
Gemini is more than just a voice assistant. It is a conversational agent that can understand natural language and context. You can type or speak to Gemini and ask it to do something for you. For example, Gemini was asked to find some emails from British Airways in Gmail. It not only found the emails, but also sorted them by categories (such as updates, trips, or privacy) and gave a summary of each one. This was much more helpful than scrolling through hundreds of messages.
Gemini was also asked, on Pixel 8, to suggest a burger place and some pubs near Tottenham Court Road for Friday night. It gave some good recommendations, based on its knowledge of the area and my preferences. It even suggested a late-night spot to go to after the meal.
These are some of the practical uses of AI that are more exciting than generating creepy images, writing code, or scanning images for things to buy. Smartphones have too many features and functions that are hard to access or use. People have better things to do than to learn how to use their phones efficiently.
How the Android Chatbot Can Make Your Phone Easier To Use
That’s why we hope that Google will integrate Gemini more deeply into the basic functionality of Android. A person should be able to ask the Android chatbot to do simple things like turning on a mobile hotspot for an hour, creating a shared folder in Photos and adding the last 10 pictures to it, or showing a video of the new features that your phone just got updated with. Gemini should also replace the need to search through Reddit, blogs, or help guides when you just want to find one setting or option.
The good news is that based on what we have seen so far, there is a good chance that this is where Android chatbots like Gemini and Galaxy AI are going.
How the Android Chatbot Can Improve In The Future
But the technology is not perfect yet. Gemini still has some limitations and gaps. For instance, Gemini was asked, on a Pixel 8, to turn dark mode on. It said it couldn’t do that. When asked Gemini to book an Uber, it said it couldn’t do that either, Gemini was asked to find an old shopping list in Google Keep, but it said it didn’t have that functionality yet.
I also tried to give Gemini some complex tasks, like writing an email for a refund for something I bought recently. It did a good job of scanning my Gmail and finding the relevant information, including the order number. But when I asked it to send the email and handle the refund process, it said it couldn’t do that yet.
I wonder what Gemini will be able to do in the future. I imagine we will see some third-party integrations at some point, because having a personal chatbot that can handle most of the refund process for you, with just your initial request, is too appealing to not happen.
Another possibility is that Google will merge Gemini and Assistant, and improve the functions that never really worked well in the Nest smart home devices. For example, you could ask Gemini, in a sentence, to make sure your heating and lights are turned on at 6 p.m. every day. All of the unused skills that Google is removing from Assistant, which some users said they never knew existed until Google announced they were being deleted, would become available.
Users wouldn’t have to ask for a specific skill, but rather they could ask Gemini to do a specific task, and it would use whatever skills it has to do it. We can see that happening now. When Gemini is asked to perform a task related to Maps or Workspace, a small logo for those services will pop up as the AI processes the request.
Why Gemini Is The Future Of Smartphones
While creating images, editing pictures, and chatting with AI will get more attention, the real smartphone revolution will be more mundane: unlocking all of the hidden features of your phone and, importantly, saving you time.
