Gemini, Google’s new family of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated models, will soon be able to access scheduled events in Google Calendar on Android smartphones.
According to 9to5Google, Calendar events are on Google’s senior director of product management, Gemini Experiences’ Jack Krawczyk’s “things to fix ASAP” list, and Google plans to build a digital assistant with better features. It is listed as something that I am trying to add to Gemini to make it.
Users who have the Gemini app installed on their Android devices can now expect Gemini to respond to voice or text prompts like “Show me your calendar” or “Do you have any upcoming calendar events?” Ta. When 9to5Google tried this last week, Gemini responded that it couldn’t handle those types of requests or queries. This was especially noticeable because these types of requests are very common with competing (non-AI) digital assistants like Siri and Google Assistant. But when the same prompt was attempted this week, Gemini opened her Google Calendar app and performed the request. If a user wants to enter a new event using Gemini, it looks like they need to say something like “Add an event to my calendar.” You must then prompt the user to enter their details manually using voice commands.
Give your all to Gemini
Google is clearly moving towards setting up Gemini as its own all-in-one AI product (including functions as a digital assistant to replace Google Assistant in the future). Users want the ability to play music and edit shopping lists through Gemini, and there are quite a few steps to manage. Another big hurdle Gemini has to clear if it wants to become popular is that it’s currently only available in the United States.
The race to be the best AI assistant has intensified little by little lately between Microsoft with Copilot, Google with Gemini, and Amazon with Alexa. Google has recently made some pretty big strides in its ability to compress larger Gemini models to run on mobile devices. It seems like these more complex model features could significantly improve Gemini’s capabilities. Google Assistant is fairly widely recognized, which has an even bigger impact on Google’s cap. I’d be hesitant to bet on any one of these digital AI assistants, but if Google continues to develop Gemini at this pace, I think it’s very likely.
