Google is testing a new Gemini feature called 'Call for Me' that lets the AI place phone calls to businesses on a user's behalf, sharing approved personal details to complete tasks like booking reservations or checking stock. The feature is limited to Pixel 11 owners with a Gemini subscription in the U.S. and requires the beta Google Phone app, using the user's own number and allowing them to watch a live transcript or take over the call.
Google has launched Live Avatar, a feature within its Gemini 3.8 Live model that renders an animated persona with lip-syncing and facial expressions during real-time conversations. The feature currently works across the 97 languages Gemini supports without losing video quality, and can display on-screen information while speaking. It is available only to Gemini Enterprise customers, who can choose from preset avatars or build custom ones.
Dymocks Tutoring and Talent 100 is closing its five Sydney tutoring centres by the end of the week, telling parents that AI tools like Gemini and ChatGPT can now provide the study help it once charged for. The company said students increasingly rely on such tools for exam prep and instant feedback, making its human tutoring service redundant.
Google is updating Chrome so that tabs sent between devices now retain the exact scroll position and any partially filled forms, letting users resume reading or complete forms seamlessly across desktop and mobile. Gemini in Chrome is also expanding its ability to analyze, summarize, and quiz users on podcasts and non-YouTube videos, in addition to documents and webpages it already supports.
Adobe announced it is expanding its AI chatbot integrations by adding Acrobat PDF tools to its existing Claude and Claude Code plugin, and by bringing its creative tool suite to Google Gemini. The Acrobat tools let Claude users organize, redact, convert and edit PDFs, including an interactive editor and a Document Review skill that adds suggestions directly into files.
Google is rolling out an early experimental feature that lets Gemini place calls to local businesses on a user's behalf, handling tasks like reservations, stock checks or rescheduling appointments. The AI navigates phone menus and holds while the user watches a live transcript and can take over at any moment. The feature is available today as an early preview to Gemini paid subscribers enrolled in the Phone by Google Public Beta on Pixel 11 in the US.
Code strings found in the latest Digital Wellbeing beta (v1.48.975819457.beta) reveal that Google is preparing to deprecate the 'Heads Up' feature, which warns users to watch where they're walking. The strings include an in-app alert telling users that 'walking detection is going away soon.' The opt-in feature, introduced in 2021, uses motion sensors and location data to detect walking with the screen unlocked and nudge users to look up.
Google announced that Gemini in Google Docs can now pull context directly from a user's Gemini Notebooks, letting the AI ground its writing in curated research. Users can type "@" in the Gemini panel to select a notebook, and Gemini will add inline citations when drafting so facts can be checked without switching tabs. The feature is rolling out to Business, Education, and Enterprise plan users, as well as Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers.
Google has released Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS and Flash-Lite TTS, new text-to-speech models that can generate custom voices from text descriptions, replicate a voice from a 30-second sample with permission, and follow directions for accent, pacing, emotion and multi-speaker dialogue. The models support over 100 languages and more than 2,000 ready-made voices, and are rolling out in Gemini Notebook and Google Vids as well as to developers via Google AI Studio and the Gemini API.
Koray Kavukcuoglu, in his first media appearance as Google DeepMind's leader, told The Information that Gemini 4 is in its post-training refinement stage and that Google hopes to release it well before year-end. He said Google would keep up 'fast-paced iterations,' and acknowledged the company shelved a planned Gemini 3.5 Pro update to focus on faster Flash models instead.
Google now lets anyone with a personal or Workspace account use Google Vids to create 1080p videos powered by its Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash-Lite model, free of charge. The feature is accessible via vids.new by selecting 'Create AI videos,' though Google hasn't specified any usage limits for free accounts, and generated videos carry a SynthID watermark. Google also announced plans to add Gemini 3.8 Flash-Lite text-to-speech for voiceovers, supporting over 100 languages.
Google announced 14 new connected apps for Gemini spanning productivity, creativity and lifestyle categories, including Airtable, Linear, monday.com, PandaDoc, Wispr AI, Zoho, Adobe, Picsart, Squarespace, Webflow, Apartments.com, Experian, Peloton and SeatGeek. Users can link these services via Gemini's settings, an @ mention, or by asking the chatbot directly, with rollout starting today.
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