Google is rolling out AI-powered voice assistant modes for Gmail, Docs, and Keep that allow you to manage the apps by talking to them. The real time conversational capabilities are called Gmail Live, Docs Live, and Keep Live, and like the Gemini Live experience for Google’s chatbot, aim to make it easier to note down or find specific information when you’re on the move or unable to do so manually.
Gmail Live is primarily designed to surface details from your inbox without you having to dig through lengthy email threads using keywords or subject lines. For example, Google says that you can ask questions like “when is my kid’s next school event?,” and the voice assistant will pull that information from wherever it was sent to your Gmail inbox and feed a summarized version of it back to you verbally, while linking the email sources in the onscreen transcript. You can ask Gmail Live follow-up questions without starting a new conversation, and interrupt it mid-sentence if you need to pivot to something else.
Docs Live can help to format your ideas into structured documents based on conversational descriptions of what you need, such as you asking it to summarize longer documents or turn them into business proposals. If granted permission, it can also pull information from your
Gmail, Drive, Chat, and the web to better personalize its outputs. And for Keep Live, you can transcribe by talking naturally and Gemini will contextualize your notes without requiring specific words or explanations, such as asking it to add “ingredients for pesto” to your shopping list.
These features were previewed at Google I/O in May, but they’re now rolling out to mobile platforms globally in English starting today. Gmail Live is available on iOS and Android for users on Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra plans, Docs Live and Keep Live are coming to AI Pro and Ultra plans, but Keep Live is Android only, while Docs is available on both iOS and Android platforms. All three are “coming soon” for Workspace business customers, according to Google.
