(Credit: Google)
AI chatbots may not be any nearer to your heart, but one can now be closer to your wrist with Google’s announcement Wednesday that it’s bringing its Gemini AI assistant to its Wear OS smartwatch operating system.
Samsung’s new Watch 8 series, also announced Wednesday at that company’s Unpacked event in New York, will be the first Wear OS watch to ship with Gemini, to be followed by others running Wear OS 4 or newer versions of that platform, such as Google's Pixel Watch 3.
You’ll be able to interact with the chatbot via voice by saying “Hey Google,” pressing and holding the watch’s side button, or tapping the Gemini icon on the watch’s screen. Google’s post suggests such applications for this hands-free interaction as getting advice on a recipe, sending a quick email, adding an item to your calendar, or setting reminders for your near-future self.
Another Google post brings further updates on the company’s ongoing collaboration with Samsung. On that electronics conglomerate’s new Watch 8 and Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7 folding phones, Google’s Circle to Search AI feature will include Google’s AI Mode (which is also coming to Google’s recent Pixel phones). Yet another Google post published Wednesday suggests a novel use case for AI-ified Circle to Search: asking for help with Android games.
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You’ll also be able to invoke Gemini Live in the Z Flip 7’s outward-facing FlexWindow to get the counsel of the interactive AI service Google introduced last August on whatever it sees via the camera next to the screen, such as you trying on different pairs of glasses.
In addition, Google is extending Gemini Live’s in-app support to Samsung’s Calendar, Reminder and Notes apps, allowing its AI to do things like add a concert to your calendar after you point the phone’s camera at a poster showing that performance’s date, time and location.
(In a story on Monday, Ars Technica security reporter Dan Goodin warned that Gemini Live’s default app integration includes WhatsApp and Messages, which he suggested could lead to human reviewers seeing snippets of your messages as part of Google’s software quality-control efforts. A Google support note states that this review is subject to such privacy measures as automatically “disconnecting your conversations with Gemini Apps from your Google Account,” while a separate note explains how to disconnect particular apps from Gemini Live.)
Finally, Google’s Wednesday news dump includes one extra tidbit for its Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL, and Pixel 9 Pro Fold: Google’s Veo 3 AI video-generation service is coming “soon” to those phones, which already come with a year of free access to Google’s AI Pro service that normally costs $19.99 a month.