Damien Wilde / Android Authority
TL;DR Google is upgrading its TalkBack accessibility system with new Gemini-powered voice editing.
Users will be able to two-finger double-tap in Gboard to quickly get started.
Gemini will allow them to edit text input using natural language requests.
Smartphones are incredibly flexible devices, and many of us probably never even realize just how many tools they offer to make it possible for users of all abilities to be able to interact with them. For those with low vision, Android’s offered its TalkBack system for years now, using voice output to describe what’s present on users’ screens. And as part of today’s Android 16 updates, TalkBack is getting a new Gemini-enhanced upgrade.
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Actually, TalkBack already does a lot more than just reading your screen, and offers device navigation and even text editing tools with the help of some gesture commands. To those, Google’s now adding a convenient two-finger double-tap gesture to initiate dictation in Gboard.
But this isn’t just any dictation — this is Smart Dictation with Gemini, and that means that beyond simple voice-to-text action, this input mode supports contextually aware edits. As you can see in Google’s example above, users can correct their text input with natural-language prompts, avoiding the need for difficult fine-grained, letter-by-letter selection of text.
That sounds like an absolute win for Android users, and even those who don’t normally need to take advantage of TalkBack might be tempted to give Smart Dictation a spin. At least, we can think of a million reasons we might want to go hands-free with a powerful text editor like this.
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