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Gemini voice commands no longer require you to press ‘send’

One of the most annoying aspects of using the Gemini Android app as a Google Assistant replacement on day one was having to manually send/submit voice commands. Google has fortunately fixed that behavior.

At launch on Thursday, voice commands to Gemini required that you press submit. You’d finish a request and the pulsating (Material You) mic indicator would keep spinning before stopping a few seconds later. This is when you realize that a tap of the send arrow is needed.

Besides adding a few seconds to a voice interaction that should be speedy, pressing a button to signal you are done feels positively archaic after living with voice assistants for several years. It essentially turned the microphone input method into speech-to-text.

As of Saturday, we’ve noticed that voice commands via the overlay panel (power button, corner swipe, and “Hey Google”) and full app are sent automatically. Additionally, Gemini is much faster at realizing when you’re done speaking.

This looks to be a server-side fix and it’s great that the Gemini team prioritized this voice send/submit regression. Google also released a small update to the Gemini app/shortcut on Friday. 

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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com