Google announced the company is making its new AI assistant Gemini Live available free to all Android users. The move follows the feature’s release last month to Gemini Advanced subscribers. This general release will occur gradually, and only in English for the time being. Gemini Live lets users have a more natural, free-flowing conversation with their phones than was available through Google Assistant via the “Hey, Google” prompt. Gemini inquiries are meant to be conversational, eliciting a back and forth that queriers can interrupt, adding more detail or veering to another topic entirely.

“With Gemini Live, you can brainstorm ideas out loud: to ask for a gift idea, plan an event, or make a business plan,” Google explains in its Help Center. All you need is an Android phone or tablet and the Gemini mobile app (or Gemini on-device as your mobile assistant, as with the new Pixel 9 and Samsung Galaxy S24 series phones).

“Live does not support Gemini Extensions to access Gmail, YouTube Music, and other apps, but that capability is coming in the future,” writes 9to5Google, guiding readers on how to access the feature by tapping “a new circular waveform with a sparkle icon in the bottom-right of the Gemini overlay or the full app.”

That will land you on “a fullscreen experience with ‘Hold’ and ‘End’ buttons at the bottom,” 9to5Google explains, noting “you can exit this UI to continue using your phone or lock the screen, with Gemini Live working in the background.”

The Gemini Live app has “10 new voices that apply to the rest of Gemini,” 9to5Google adds, pointing interested parties to “Go to Gemini settings > Gemini’s voice to demo” to experience voices like Eclipse, an “engaged, mid-range voice,” or Capella, a higher voice with a British accent.

“Download the app and engage in real-time conversations with AI,” suggests Tom’s Guide, calling that potentiality “a huge step forward in the way we interact with AI.”

Gemini Live will also provide textual responses to written queries, which may be preferable or necessary in situations requiring privacy, or in meetings. But Gemini Live Voice Mode is the main event. “The concept is to imitate the human-like feel of social interactions and have the AI actively participate in a two-way conversation,” Tom’s Guide points out.

Last month, Gemini Live became the de facto ChatGPT challenger when Google released it to Gemini Advanced subscribers, who were urged to use it to rehearse for job interview questions or create party playlists.