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Google adds voice, avatars to Gemini

Google is making its Gemini artificial intelligence platform more conversational with new voice and avatar capabilities that allow AI-generated characters to speak, express themselves and interact with users in real time.

The latest rollout includes Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS, Gemini 3.8 Flash-Lite TTS and Gemini 3.8 Live with Live Avatar. Together, the updates expand Gemini beyond text and give developers new ways to build voice-based and visual AI experiences.

The new technology is aimed at making interactions with artificial intelligence sound and feel more natural. Instead of simply converting written text into speech, Google’s latest models can control the style and delivery of a voice, generate conversations between multiple speakers and, in some cases, reproduce a voice from a short recording.

The most notable addition to Google’s text-to-speech technology is voice cloning.

Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS can create a synthetic version of a person’s voice using a short audio sample. Reports on the rollout say the system can clone a voice from about 30 seconds of recorded speech.

Developers can also describe the voice they want through natural-language instructions. They can specify characteristics such as the speaker’s style, tone, accent or role, allowing them to create voices suited to different applications.

The technology could be used for digital assistants, audiobooks, games, video content and virtual characters. A company, for example, could create a branded AI assistant with a consistent voice, while content creators could generate narration without recording every line themselves.

Google has also designed the models to produce more expressive speech. The AI can adjust elements such as tone, pacing and delivery, helping conversations sound less robotic.

Gemini’s new text-to-speech capabilities are not limited to individual sentences.

The models can generate dialogue involving multiple speakers, allowing developers to create AI conversations with different voices. This could make the technology useful for podcasts, educational content, interactive stories and other applications where dialogue is central.

The system is also designed to handle conversational flow more naturally. Rather than producing isolated audio clips, developers can use the technology to create a complete exchange between AI-generated speakers.

Google is offering Gemini 3.8 Flash-Lite TTS as a lighter option for applications that need speech generation at scale. This could benefit developers building voice agents and services that need to produce large amounts of audio.

The new models are being made available through Google’s developer tools, including Google AI Studio and the Gemini API.

Google is also changing how its conversational AI looks.

With Gemini 3.8 Live with Live Avatar, users can interact with an animated AI character that speaks and responds during a live conversation.

The avatar can synchronise its mouth movements with generated speech and use facial expressions while responding. This creates a visual layer on top of Gemini’s existing conversational abilities.

The system is designed for near real-time interaction, allowing users to communicate with an AI character rather than simply receiving a text or audio response.

Google is initially focusing Live Avatar on enterprise applications. Businesses could use the technology for customer support, digital guides, training, product demonstrations and interactive kiosks.

Companies can select existing avatars or create their own digital characters with specific appearances and voices. The technology can be integrated into websites, mobile applications and other interactive experiences.

The ability to create realistic voices and faces also raises concerns around synthetic media and identity.

Voice cloning can make it difficult to distinguish between genuine recordings and AI-generated audio, particularly when a person’s voice is reproduced from a short sample.

Google says its AI systems include safeguards designed to address these risks. The company is also using SynthID, its watermarking technology for identifying AI-generated content, with the Live Avatar system.

The safeguards are particularly relevant as AI-generated voices and faces become increasingly realistic and accessible to developers.

The latest updates show Google’s broader push to make Gemini a multimodal AI platform.

The company’s AI assistant has already expanded beyond text to work with images, audio and other forms of information. The latest developments focus on making the output itself more natural, particularly when Gemini is used for conversation.

The new text-to-speech models give developers greater control over how an AI system sounds. Live Avatar adds another layer by giving that system a face and visible expressions.

For consumers, the technology could eventually lead to more natural digital assistants and interactive AI characters. For businesses, it opens up applications in customer service, training, entertainment and digital communication.

Google’s latest Gemini rollout therefore focuses not only on what artificial intelligence can say, but also on how it speaks, how it sounds and how it appears while communicating.

With voice cloning, expressive speech and animated avatars now part of the Gemini ecosystem, Google is pushing conversational AI closer to a more human-style interaction while continuing to build safeguards around increasingly realistic synthetic media.

 

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Google Cloud brings Gemini AI to legal work

Google Cloud has launched Gemini Enterprise for Legal, a specialised artificial intelligence platform designed to help law firms and corporate legal departments automate time-consuming legal work while keeping sensitive information within controlled environments.

Announced on August 25, the new offering brings AI agents into workflows such as contract review, legal research, regulatory monitoring, privacy requests and document drafting. Unlike general-purpose AI tools that mainly respond to prompts, Google says its new platform is designed to carry out multi-step tasks using a firm’s own systems, data and working rules.

The service is currently available in preview and has been introduced with the involvement of major law firms including Cleary Gottlieb, Freshfields, Weil and Williams & Connolly. Google is positioning the product as part of a wider push to build industry-specific AI solutions rather than relying on a single general-purpose model for every professional task.

A key difference is the emphasis on the particular demands of legal work. Lawyers often deal with privileged client information, confidential documents and separate access rights for different matters. They also need research to be based on reliable legal authority rather than simply generated from an AI model’s training data.

Gemini Enterprise for Legal is designed to address those concerns by connecting with a firm’s existing document and matter-management systems. Google says the platform can inherit existing permissions and ethical walls, helping prevent information from one client or matter from being accessed inappropriately by another. Client files, internal playbooks, negotiated positions and other organisational data are also intended to remain within the firm’s private data environment.

The platform has four main elements. The first is a collection of purpose-built legal skills that guide AI agents through tasks such as contract review, legal brief drafting, citation verification, regulatory monitoring and Data Subject Access Request, or DSAR, processing.

The second is a network of secure connectors that allows Gemini Enterprise for Legal to work with software already used by legal teams. These include iManage, NetDocuments, DocuSign, Everlaw, RelativityOne, Thomson Reuters, Harvey, Legora and CourtListener, among others. Google says the integrations are designed to preserve existing access controls instead of requiring firms to move their data into a separate system.

The third element is an ecosystem of third-party legal technology providers and AI agents. Companies and consulting firms including Accenture, Deloitte, KPMG and others are working with Google to extend the platform and build customised capabilities.

The fourth is the underlying Gemini Enterprise platform, which provides a central control system for IT and risk teams. It includes governance, audit logging and risk-management features, giving organisations greater visibility into how AI is being used.

The practical appeal for lawyers could lie in the amount of routine work the system is designed to handle. Gemini Enterprise for Legal can monitor legislative changes, court dockets and regulatory developments, then compare those changes with an organisation’s policies and flag potential areas of exposure.

Contract work is another major focus. The AI can examine vendor agreements, non-disclosure agreements and merger-and-acquisition documents against a firm’s existing playbooks. It can highlight clauses that may create risk, allowing lawyers to spend more time on negotiation and professional judgment rather than first-pass document review.

The platform can also turn older contracts into structured contracting playbooks by identifying commonly used terms, fallback positions and other institutional knowledge. That could help firms maintain consistency across large numbers of agreements while reducing the manual effort involved in building and updating internal guidance.

Privacy teams are another target. The system can search across enterprise systems to locate personal information needed for DSAR responses, potentially reducing the time spent collecting information manually and helping organisations meet regulatory deadlines.

Other applications include preparing and redacting documents for court filings, as well as drafting NDAs while following a firm’s preferred structure and formatting. Google describes this shift as a move from AI that simply answers questions to agentic AI that can execute defined tasks from beginning to end, with human professionals remaining responsible for critical decisions and review.

Security is central to Google’s pitch because legal technology involves some of the most sensitive corporate and personal information. Google says client data, firm-specific playbooks, intellectual property, custom agents and model outputs remain private to the organisation and are not used to train or fine-tune its foundation models.

The launch also highlights the intensifying competition in legal AI. Technology companies and specialist legal-tech firms are increasingly targeting law firms as demand grows for faster research, document analysis and workflow automation. Google’s strategy is to work alongside existing legal software rather than force firms to replace their current systems.

For law firms, the bigger change may therefore be less about replacing lawyers and more about changing how legal teams divide their time. Routine searches, document checks and compliance monitoring can increasingly be delegated to AI agents, while lawyers concentrate on interpretation, strategy, negotiation and client advice.

Gemini Enterprise for Legal is still in preview, meaning its capabilities and integrations will continue to evolve. Google has also indicated that more industry-specific versions of Gemini Enterprise are planned, signalling a broader strategy of taking enterprise AI beyond general productivity tools and adapting it to specialised professional workflows.

 

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Google’s Gemini surges to 950 mn monthly users

Google has delivered a strong statement in the global artificial intelligence race, with CEO Sundar Pichai announcing that Gemini now has 950 million monthly active users. The milestone, revealed during Alphabet’s second-quarter 2026 earnings call, underscores how rapidly Google’s AI chatbot has grown and positions it among the world’s most widely used AI platforms.

The announcement comes amid intense competition in generative AI, where companies including OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic are racing to attract users and launch more capable AI models. It also follows comments attributed to Meta’s Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, who reportedly questioned Gemini’s popularity. While Pichai did not respond directly, the latest user figures have become Google’s strongest answer to such criticism.

According to Pichai, Gemini’s daily active users have tripled over the past year, reflecting rising adoption among both consumers and businesses. He said Google’s continued investments in AI research, infrastructure and product integration have helped Gemini reach users at an unprecedented pace.

Unlike standalone AI chatbots, Gemini is deeply embedded across Google’s ecosystem. It powers AI features in Search, Gmail, Google Docs, Android, Chrome and Workspace, enabling users to draft emails, summarise documents, answer complex questions, generate code and complete everyday tasks more efficiently. This broad integration has played a key role in accelerating user adoption.

Google has also expanded Gemini’s presence in enterprise software through Google Cloud, where businesses are increasingly using the AI assistant to automate workflows, improve customer service, analyse data and assist software development. As more organisations embrace artificial intelligence, enterprise demand has become an important growth driver for Gemini.

Pichai said Google’s advantage lies in its ability to combine cutting-edge AI models with its own cloud infrastructure, custom-built AI chips and billions of existing users across its products. This “full-stack” strategy allows the company to roll out new AI capabilities at scale while continuously improving performance and reliability.

The strong momentum in AI was reflected in Alphabet’s latest financial results. The company reported robust second-quarter revenue growth, driven by continued strength in Search, Cloud and AI-powered services. Google Cloud emerged as one of the fastest-growing businesses, benefiting from rising enterprise demand for AI infrastructure and generative AI tools.

Gemini’s rapid growth also highlights how the AI landscape has evolved over the past two years. When OpenAI launched ChatGPT, many industry observers believed Google had fallen behind despite years of AI research. Since then, Google has accelerated development of Gemini, introduced more advanced AI models and integrated them across nearly every major product.

The competition, however, remains intense. OpenAI continues to expand ChatGPT’s capabilities, while Meta is investing billions of dollars to strengthen its AI ecosystem. Anthropic and several other AI companies are also introducing increasingly sophisticated models, making innovation and user engagement key battlegrounds.

Rather than focusing only on benchmark scores, technology companies are now measuring success through real-world adoption and everyday usage. In that context, reaching 950 million monthly active users marks a significant achievement for Google and demonstrates that Gemini has become a mainstream AI assistant used across work, education and personal productivity.

Industry experts believe the next phase of competition will depend not only on building smarter AI models but also on making them more useful, accessible and seamlessly integrated into people’s daily lives. Google’s strategy of embedding Gemini across its products appears to be paying off, helping millions of users interact with AI without needing a separate application.

With Gemini now closing in on the one-billion-user milestone, Google has strengthened its position in the global AI race. For Sundar Pichai, the latest figures serve as clear evidence that the company’s long-term investments in artificial intelligence are translating into rapid user growth and expanding influence in one of the technology industry’s most competitive sectors.

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Gemini powers Google’s new home speaker

Google is making a fresh push into the smart home market with a new Google Home speaker powered by its Gemini artificial intelligence platform, betting that advanced AI can reignite interest in smart speakers.

The device marks Google’s first major smart speaker launch in nearly six years and represents a shift away from traditional voice assistants. Instead of responding only to simple commands, the new speaker is designed to hold more natural conversations, understand context and handle multiple requests in a single interaction.

Powered by Gemini for Home, the speaker allows users to speak in a more conversational manner. Users can ask follow-up questions, control multiple smart home devices at once and receive more detailed responses without repeating commands.

Google says the speaker has been built specifically for AI-first experiences. It features improved voice recognition, better noise handling and local AI processing to make interactions faster and more reliable. The device also acts as a hub for connected smart home products and supports industry standards such as Matter and Thread.

The company hopes the product will help it compete more effectively with Amazon’s Echo range and Apple’s growing smart home ecosystem. Industry experts believe the integration of generative AI could give smart speakers a new purpose after years of limited innovation in the category.

The speaker is expected to be available from June 25 and comes with access to premium Gemini features for early buyers. Google has reportedly fixed thousands of software issues during testing to improve the user experience before launch.

With AI becoming central to consumer technology, Google is positioning Gemini as the future of home assistance, transforming smart speakers from simple voice-controlled gadgets into more capable digital companions.

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Google introduces Gemini for science

Google has introduced Gemini for Science, a new artificial intelligence initiative aimed at helping scientists and researchers handle complex research work more efficiently. The company said the tools are designed to support researchers in analysing information, identifying patterns and assisting with scientific discoveries across different areas of study.

Research today often involves handling huge amounts of data, studies and technical information. Google said Gemini for Science is intended to reduce the time spent on repetitive and data-heavy tasks so researchers can focus more on experiments and innovation.

The AI system can assist in reviewing scientific papers, organising large datasets and helping researchers identify possible connections and insights that might otherwise take much longer to find. The technology is expected to support work in areas such as healthcare, biology, chemistry and other scientific fields.

Google said the goal is not to replace scientists but to create a tool that works alongside them, helping improve productivity and speed up the research process. Experts believe AI-powered research tools could become increasingly important as scientific work becomes more data-driven.

The launch reflects the growing role of artificial intelligence beyond consumer technology, with companies increasingly building specialised AI tools for research and industry applications.

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Sarvam AI beats global rivals in India tests

India’s artificial intelligence ecosystem has received a major boost as Sarvam AI, a Bengaluru-based startup, has outperformed global AI models such as Google Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT in several benchmarks designed around India-specific use cases. The achievement has attracted international attention and highlighted the growing strength of indigenous AI innovation.

Sarvam AI’s success comes from its focus on challenges unique to India, including multilingual content, diverse scripts, and complex document formats. While many global AI models are designed for broad, international applications, they often struggle with regional languages and locally used documents. Sarvam has addressed this gap by building models specifically trained for Indian conditions.

One of its key products, Sarvam Vision, is an advanced optical character recognition (OCR) system capable of reading and understanding complex documents. These include scanned government records, handwritten text, tables, and pages containing multiple Indian languages in a single layout. In recent benchmark tests, Sarvam Vision scored higher than competing systems from major global players, demonstrating superior accuracy and reliability.

Another major highlight is Bulbul V3, Sarvam’s text-to-speech model. Bulbul V3 has been developed to generate natural-sounding voices in Indian languages and accents. The system currently supports more than 35 voices and is designed to eventually cover all 22 official Indian languages. In listening and performance tests, Bulbul V3 delivered clearer pronunciation and more natural speech than several international alternatives, particularly for Indian language outputs.

Experts say Sarvam’s performance shows the importance of building AI systems that are locally trained rather than globally generic. Its models are seen as especially useful for sectors such as government services, banking, education, healthcare and customer support, where Indian languages and document formats are widely used.

The achievement has also strengthened the idea of “sovereign AI”  technology developed within the country to meet national needs and reduce dependence on foreign platforms.

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Google Maps Gets Smarter with AI in India

Google Maps is introducing a series of AI-powered features in India, marking a significant upgrade to the popular navigation app. Leveraging Google’s Gemini AI, the update aims to make travel smarter, safer, and more personalized for users across the country.

One of the key additions is voice-powered assistance while driving. Users can now ask questions such as “Where is the nearest petrol pump?”, “Find parking nearby,” or “Take me to a good restaurant,” and receive instant guidance without needing to type. The app also provides quick tips about locations, including advice on markets, restaurants, and local attractions. For example, it can highlight popular stalls in a market or suggest bargaining tips.

Safety is another major focus. Google Maps will alert drivers about accident-prone zones, display speed limits, and notify users of major traffic disruptions even when they are not actively navigating. The app also integrates information from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), offering real-time updates on highway closures, ongoing repairs, and available amenities like fuel stations and restrooms.

India-specific features have also been added for two-wheeler users. Riders can now customize their navigation icon according to their bike or scooter style, while voice guidance supports nine Indian languages, helping users navigate complex roads and flyovers more easily. Additionally, integration with Google Wallet allows users in cities like Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Kochi to save metro tickets for easy access through Maps.

With these updates, Google Maps is positioning itself as a more intuitive, user-friendly, and safety-conscious navigation tool for Indian users. The rollout will begin gradually on Android and iOS devices in the coming weeks, offering a mix of AI-driven convenience and localized travel support.

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