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Gemini Live now speaks Italian. Everything you need to know

Talk for free with artificial intelligence inside your mobile phone, in a free conversation.

5 November 2024

4' min read

Talk for free with artificial intelligence inside your mobile phone, in a free conversation. Since a few days it is also possible to do so in Italian, with Google's Gemini Live service. It is similar to Chatgpt's "advanced voice" but with the main difference that it is free without limits (with Chatgpt it is a maximum of one hour per day).

What is Gemini Live

Gemini Live is a Google service with generative artificial intelligence. The word 'live' indicates the ability to converse freely with Gemini (Google's AI) in a more natural way. We can also interrupt it, for instance when you want to add more details or change the topic of the conversation. With Gemini Live it is therefore possible to have a fluid conversation, brainstorm ideas aloud, ask for information on topics of interest, practise a speech or in a foreign language. Of all these conversations we can then find the transcript by clicking on the chat icon at the top left (here are also the interactions with normal Gemini).

What you need for Gemini Live

To use Gemini Live you need an Android phone or tablet. Then you access it via the Gemini mobile app or via the Google Assistant if you have converted it to Gemini. For now, Gemini Live is not available in the Gemini web app, in Gemini in Google Messages or in the Gemini tab of the Google app on the iPhone.

How to use Gemini live

We download the Gemini app. Here to start live we click on the three lines . Alternatively, do this in the Google Assistant if it is set up with Gemini (in the Google Assistant settings we can choose whether to keep the basic Google Assistant or Gemini). In the latter case, just say "Hey Google" to start Gemini and then click on the three lines to start Live mode.

In all cases, if we click on the icon representing our Google account (top right) we can choose in the settings the Gemini voices to be used (the language and the type of voice, male, female, energetic, calm, etc.). Italian is the default for Italian users, but we can also add other languages. There is also the option to interrupt Live replies by simply speaking - as we would with another person; without risking sounding rude. But there is also the button to pause the conversation, so that we can resume it whenever we want.

What to do with Gemini Live

All this for what purpose? Let's start by saying what you can't do with Gemini Live at the moment but can do with the normal Gemini, i.e. the smartphone assistant functions with which you can, for example, call a contact in the address book, make an appointment in the calendar, start Google Maps or other more complex things such as getting a summary of Gmail mails received, checking a flight, activating a home automation routine and so on.

Functions to come, says Google. At the moment, however, Live is pure conversation.

We can still do many things with it, in contexts where it is more convenient or necessary to use voice instead of typing in AI chat or reading.

Support for meetings, writing

For example, we are driving or walking and want advice on how to prepare for a meeting with certain characteristics.

Or we have a doubt about a text or presentation we need to write and then we can ask him to give us an idea or even write us a first draft.

Tourism

Another use where 'voice' AI makes sense is in tourism. 'I'm in front of the Duomo in Milan, what do you recommend I see'? "Plan a nearby walking tour for me. I only have an hour'. 'Tell me the history of this church'. All situations, in short, where it is better to talk and listen than to write and read with AI.

Help for various tasks

Another situation is where we have our hands full. Examples: how to position the hooks so that the curtains hang well? What recipe do you recommend with these ingredients? I'm at the supermarket, what vegetables do you recommend in this season? Beware in public contexts: people are not yet used to seeing people talking to AI, they might think we are asking them something. Or worse.

Language Tutor

Another use is to practise speaking in a foreign language. There are many specialised apps such as Elsa and Duolingo that allow us to do this, with ad hoc scores and functions, but many are also getting on well with Google's AI or that of OpenAI Chatgpt. We can also ask it to correct our English, for example, as a tutor.

Universal Tutor

Still in the tutor key, we can ask him for any information or explanation on anything or almost anything. For an assignment at school, for example: a subject we didn't quite understand he can explain it to us; he can quiz us to prepare for a test or an interrogation. He can brief us and help us go over something related to a job we have to do. It can be useful for a simple cultural or informational curiosity that maybe comes to us while we are driving. It can also be a way to combat driving boredom. It can serve us, for example, to get information related to what we are seeing or doing at that moment, for example on sights to see in a city whose name we read on the road sign while driving.

Again, let us imagine situations of Live use where it is better to use the voice channel than the text channel, either for obvious practical reasons (we drive, we walk, we have our hands full) or for a matter of convenience or personal preference (we are better off receiving information in audio form for example).