Gmail users on Android devices can now chat directly with Google’s AI assistant, Gemini, about their emails in the Gmail app. Google rolled out the new feature, Gmail Q&A, on Thursday to users who pay for Gemini, according to a blog post, and announced the feature would be coming to iOS devices.
With Gmail Q&A, users can access Google Gemini in the Gmail app as a personal assistant that can read your entire email inbox. Google says you can ask Gemini to summarize emails by stating things like, “Catch me up on the emails about quarterly planning.” You can also use the feature to search for specific details, such as asking Gemini, “How much did the company spend on the last marketing event?”
Of course, you’ll have to bear with occasional hallucinations that plague even the best AI models when using this feature, so maybe don’t trust everything it tells you.
Traditionally, if you wanted to find information in your Gmail, you could use the search bar at the top of Google. That’s not going away, but the Gemini button will be added next to the search bar. This is all part of Google’s paradigm shift away from search and toward AI chat. Instead of locating the original email through search, Gmail is pushing users to have an AI chatbot summarize the info they’re looking for. However, it will still cite the source email in its answer.
Paying users can access the feature by clicking the black star logo, which has come to represent Gemini across Google’s product suite, in the top-right corner of the app. For now, the Gmail Q&A feature only has access to your emails, but in the future, Google says it will connect to files in your Drive account, as well.
In June, Gmail Q&A was rolled out to web users of Gmail who pay for Gemini or Google One AI Premium. These users pay roughly $20 a month for AI features like this, part of Google’s product and application layer around Gemini.
It’s unlikely that Gmail Q&A will come to free Gmail users anytime soon. Instead, Google is pushing features like Gmail Q&A to convince users that the expensive monthly subscription costs for Gemini are worth it. The company is also adding Gemini to all of its existing products, including Google Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar and more — but it all comes at a price. Thus far, these AI products are Google’s best shot at generating revenue off of Gemini.
If it wasn’t clear before that Google’s Gemini chatbot was rushed out the door, it is now.
Gemini’s since-removed image generator put people of color in Nazi-era uniforms. The chatbot’s commentary continues to tend toward the absurd besides, like equating Hitler’s record with Elon Musk posting memes.
On Android, Gemini also breaks Google Assistant’s song recognition. And to me, after Gemini’s abhorrent cultural insensitivities, it’s one of the most frustrating things about it.
Let me explain.
I mostly use Gemini on my aging Samsung Galaxy A53 5G, which isn’t exactly the zippiest Android smartphone out there. To make it snappier, I replaced the default home screen with a minimalist alternative, Niagara Launcher, which is essentially an alphabetized list of the apps installed on my phone.
Niagara’s great. But it’s limited in what it can do by design, which made me dependent on Google Assistant — now Gemini — for tasks like setting timers, launching apps and so on.
Song recognition, prompted with a command like “OK Google, what’s this song?,” was a Google Assistant-delivered convenience I took advantage of often. It came in handy in nightclubs, restaurants and bars for IDing tracks I’d most certainly forget otherwise. There’s no shortage of song-recognizing apps — Apple-owned Shazam to name one. But Google Assistant was among the better out there in terms of accuracy, at least in my experience.
So imagine my frustration when I discovered that Gemini on Android can’t recognize songs — or even perform the basic task of funneling song ID requests to Google Assistant.
Ask Gemini, which replaces Google Assistant on Android, to ID a song and it has the nerve to suggest using apps like Shazam — or invoking Google Assistant by switching back to it. For added variety, it’ll occasionally suggest random songs from YouTube.
Image Credits: Google
I’m acutely aware this is a first-world problem. I could launch song recognition from the Google Search app on Android. Or, were I using a conventional home screen, I could place the dedicated song ID shortcut.
But the other aspect of Google Assistant’s song recognition that made it so attractive, at least to this writer, was the low barrier to use. Launching the feature didn’t require fiddling with an app or typing anything in. A voice command later and it was up and running, which made it fast — useful when you’re trying to quickly ID a song.
Making the song recognition situation more disheartening is the fact that I’m paying for the Google One AI Premium Plan, priced at $20 per month, which is supposed to afford me access to a more sophisticated, powerful Gemini experience. Perhaps it’s sophisticated in other ways — ways I haven’t discovered yet, frankly. But broken song recognition, along with missing basic features like the ability to play songs, create lists and more, make Gemini a very poor substitute for Google Assistant on Android at present.
Full transparency, I’ve reached out to Google about song recognition via Gemini and I’ll update this post if I hear back.
Glance, which operates a popular lockscreen platform targeting Android smartphones, is setting its sights on the U.S. market. The Indian startup recently commenced a pilot program in partnership with Motorola and Verizon in the U.S., with plans for a full launch in the country later this year, sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, backed by investors, including Google and Jio Platforms, has already made significant inroads in India, Southeast Asia, and Japan, where it expanded last year. According to a person familiar with the matter, Glance’s lockscreen platform today reaches more than 450 million smartphones and is active on about 300 million of them, delivering those customers a customized feed of news, local events, sports updates, media content, and interactive games directly to their lockscreens without requiring them to install additional apps.
Glance doesn’t collect personal data of users, instead relying on usage patterns to inform its recommendation engine. A source says that Glance is also working with Qualcomm to build a unique AI-powered lockscreen experience, and that if that partnership materializes, it will allow Glance to significantly reduce the data it consumes for its personalized feed and also move much of the processing to on-device.
In the U.S., Glance doesn’t plan to display ads on the lockscreen, according to one source. Glance ships pre-installed on devices but can be easily removed.
Android smartphone manufacturers have faced increasing pressure to boost revenue in recent years amid fierce competition and slim profit margins on hardware. Initially, many of these companies sought out new revenue streams to supplement their core business. However, as Glance’s lockscreen platform gained traction, a growing number of smartphone makers have acknowledged its potential as a powerful tool for differentiation, industry executives say.
Indeed, lockscreens and other non-app screens are becoming crucial real estate for smartphone vendors and brands. “‘Surfaces’ exist even today, driven by 3 types of players — OEM-driven, OS-driven, and surface-first innovation driven,” BCG wrote in a recent industry report. “Players like Glance are the most interesting of the lot w.r.t. innovation in AI deployed, to serve relevant content for a user every single time.”
In the U.S., the eponymous startup plans to tie up with more telecom operators, as well as brands such as CNN and the NBA, sources said, requesting anonymity, as the details are private. The recently launched Moto G Power smartphone in the U.S. shipped with Glance’s platform. A Glance spokesperson declined to comment.
Glance has been eyeing to launch in the U.S. for at least two years, TechCrunch earlier reported. It’s not clear why it didn’t launch in the U.S. sooner.
The Indian startup’s lockscreen technology has already proven successful in driving user engagement and app installations for brand partners. A nine-week partnership with Indian streaming service JioCinema last year resulted in 9 million incremental app installs from over 100 million unique impressions, BCG wrote. The campaign also targeted dormant users, leading to a 12.5% increase in app opens and converting the install base into daily active users, the report added.
Google is preparing to launch a new system to help address the problem of malware on Android. Its new live threat detection service leverages Google Play Protect’s on-device AI to analyze apps for malicious behavior. The service, announced following the Google I/O developer event on Tuesday, examines various signals related to an app’s use of sensitive permissions and interactions with other apps and services, the company explains.
If it finds suspicious behavior, Google Play Protect will be able to send the app to Google for additional review as well as warn any users who have the app installed, or even disable the app, if warranted.
The detection also takes advantage of Google’s Private Compute Core, the Android privacy infrastructure introduced in 2022 that offers an isolated data processing environment inside of the Android operating system. The idea of the Private Compute Core, or PCC, is to give users control over if, how, or when their data is shared. By using the PCC, the new live threat detection feature can protect users without collecting their data.
Image Credits: Google
Google says it will deploy the system later this year on Google Pixel devices. Other manufacturers will join it, including Oppo, Honor, Lenovo, OnePlus, Nothing, Transsion, Sharp, and more.
The service could help Android users feel more comfortable downloading and using apps from Google Play — although arguably, they’d rather not have downloaded malware in the first place. Rather, they’d like malicious apps to be caught during app review. That’s a focus area for Apple, which regularly touts the benefit of its App Store to consumers and developers. Though bad actors often slip through its cracks, it weeds out many more through its more intensive review system before allowing them to go live on the App Store. Ahead of I/O, Apple announced it had stopped $1.8 billion in fraud on the App Store, for example.
In addition to the live threat detection service, Google announced it will hide one-time passwords from notifications to cut down on a common attack vector for fraud and spyware. It will also expand Android 13’s restricted settings, which will now require additional user approval to enable app permissions when they sideload apps onto their device.
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Google has a new plan to promote Android apps outside of its Play Store. It was launched last week at its Google I/O 2024 developer conference, where the company spoke of a plan to re-engage users with apps they already have installed on their devices, as well as new ones, by giving developers a place to showcase their content in a unique way. Already, the company has more than 35 developer partners on board to test the new offering, including Spotify, Pinterest, Tumblr, TikTok and Shopify.
In a developer session at I/O, the company went into a bit more detail, saying the new SDK would help Google expand on its core mission of connecting the right audience to the right content at the right time. Developers that choose to integrate with the currently invite-only Engage SDK, as it’s called, will have a way to bring users back into their app by showcasing interesting content, promotions and deals, the company said.
“This new surface will automatically organize the best and most prevalent content from apps already installed by users on their Android phone, and it enables cross-app continuation journeys for nearly every app category,” explained Mekka Okereke, the GM for apps for Google Play, during a developer briefing at I/O. “With just a tap, users can launch full-screen, immersive experiences that highlight and arrange the most important content from their installed apps.”
The nod to the full-screen, immersive experience brings to mind something like a TikTok feed, but we understand that’s not quite the case, though Google isn’t yet explaining what, exactly, this new “surface” is. We hear it will be exclusive to Android devices — another example of how the company is leveraging its ability to integrate with its mobile OS to build out new experiences that benefit developers and consumers alike.
From this “Engage” surface, developers will be able to offer deep links that open specific pages inside their mobile apps.
Image Credits: Google
During the presentation, Google showed what looked like a series of widgets that, when tapped, would bring users to some specific task in an app. For example, tapping on an image of sneakers would bring the Android user to a page in a shopping app where they could complete the purchase, perhaps prompting the user to buy something they had saved in their cart. However, the sneakers were showcased inside a “surface” that included other products to buy from different apps, too. In other words, instead of having widgets dedicated to a single app, it seems the new surface may be able to group content from similar apps to encourage users to re-engage and complete their journey.
Other companies like Reddit, Uber Eats and Spotify could also use the surface to help users jump back into specific experiences related to those apps, like reading and upvoting posts, engaging with playlists or placing an order.
Spotify says it’s still in the process of building out its experience and determining how it would use the SDK. However, it did note that the plan is to use the Engage SDK across all Android devices.
As Okereke explained, developers will be able to drive users back to their entertainment offerings, their browsing sessions or to reorder their favorites or engage with any other app experience.
Tumblr, for instance, says it’s working with Google to offer users more content around things they already like. “Google’s Engage SDK is great for Tumblr because our community is unmistakably unique in how they express themselves. The ‘yes-and’ culture on Tumblr creates an atmosphere that’s given birth to some of the greatest internet memes and trends,” said Tumblr COO Zandy Ring. “It’s exciting for us to bring that culture to other spaces and invite those audiences back to Tumblr. Integration with Engage is like opening a two-lane highway that will bridge communities in a natural way.”
The consumer-facing feature won’t be just about reminding users what they want to do inside an app, but also to push them to take action by offering a deal. “You can showcase personalized recommendations and promotions, ensuring that users discover content they might otherwise have missed,” Okereke said.
In addition, the surface will also recommend apps that the users haven’t yet installed using “compelling content” from within those apps, he said.
Image Credits: Google
The developer preview of the Engage SDK began during I/O, but the consumer experience won’t launch until later this year. The Engage SDK is a client-side integration using on-device APIs. Developers that have begun the work found it requires less than a week to get started, Google claims.
Other top apps participating in the test of the Engage SDK include Audible, Shein, Dunkin, Wish, Blinklist, Wattpad, Nextdoor, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Rakuten Kobo, Temu, YouTube Music, Google Maps, Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, Prime Video, Reddit, YouTube, Uber Eats and others.
