Google has announced a variety of new AI features at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event. | Image: Google
Google’s AI assistant Gemini is now able to carry out tasks across multiple apps in a single interaction, in an update announced today alongside the launch of Samsung’s new Galaxy S25 series. Those phones are also Samsung’s first to feature Gemini as the default on-device assistant, relegating Bixby to the app drawer. Those changes are part of a raft of other updates from Google including improvements to the AI-powered Circle to Search.
With today’s update, Gemini is able to carry out more complex multimodal tasks. You might ask it to find a dog-friendly Italian restaurant and send it to your friend, or pull up your NFL team’s upcoming games and add them to your calendar, all in a single prompt.
Source: Google
Gemini gives you the chance to confirm multi-app actions before it goes ahead.
The multi-app support is built on top of Gemini’s existing app extensions, which cover a spread of Google apps and limited third-party options including WhatsApp and Spotify. Today’s update adds Samsung’s own apps to that list for S25 users — including Samsung Calendar, Notes, Reminder, and Clock — but other multi-extension prompts are available now to all Gemini users across the web, Android, and iOS.
Source: Google
Gemini Live can give you photography feedback.
Gemini Live, the assistant’s voice-based conversational mode, is also getting an upgrade, though this one is currently limited to the Galaxy S25 and S24 phones and Google’s own Pixel 9 series. Owners of those devices will be able to share images, files, and YouTube videos to the chat interface, asking Gemini for feedback and information. Google also says that Project Astra features like screen sharing and live video streaming will come to Gemini on Android in the coming months.
With all those upgrades in tow, Samsung has made Gemini the default virtual assistant on the new S25 phones, finally replacing its own Bixby assistant. You can still access Bixby on the phones — the app is preinstalled — but by default, long-pressing the power button will now open up Gemini instead.
Circle to Search is getting improvements, too. It will be able to automatically recognize phone numbers, email addresses, and URLs so you can interact with them more easily. The AI Overviews in search results have also been expanded to work with more kinds of visual search results, increasing the probability that using Circle to Search on an image of a place, artwork, or object will generate an AI Overview in the results.
Finally, Google also announced changes that should make it easier to pair braille screen readers and hearing aids to Android devices.
Google announced the new features alongside Samsung’s launch of the Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra at Galaxy Unpacked today. Two hours earlier, the companies revealed a new Galaxy Watch for Kids mode on Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 LTE. It adds kid-friendly apps and watchfaces plus improved parental controls.
