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Google’s latest Android Show: I/O Edition wasn’t just about a fresh coat of paint for Android 17. If anything, the real star of the show was Gemini Intelligence, a new, smarter layer baked directly into the operating system update.
It’s not just another behind-the-scenes Gemini upgrade, either; the new tools are designed to handle the more mundane aspects of phone use. And, while the big rollout starts with Pixel and Galaxy phones later this summer, Google has confirmed these smarts are also headed to Android Auto via its new Google Built-In program, along with the newly teased Googlebooks, later this year.
With that said, here are all the helpful things you’ll be able to do with Gemini in Android 17 in the coming months.
Gemini can handle multi-step tasks across apps
The biggest upgrade in Gemini’s capabilities is in the app department. Currently, if you see a flyer for a concert, you have to manually search for the venue, check your calendar, and open a travel app to book a room – but Gemini Intelligence aims to do all of that in one go.
A quick demo showed a user taking a photo of a flyer and simply telling Gemini to ‘find a similar location on Expedia and book it.’ Because Gemini can now combine task automation with the ability to understand images and texts at once, it can connect those dots for you. It’ll scan the photo, find the information and set up the booking in the relevant apps – all you have to do is confirm.
It’s a huge step forward from the usual AI features we’ve seen. If it works as advertised, it could remove the tedium of bouncing between different apps to just organise a single day out.
Chrome Auto Browse will search the web for you
Chrome Auto Browse is Google’s attempt to make searching for information on your phone a lot easier. Instead of having to open twenty tabs to compare hotel prices, find concert tickets or research a niche topic, Gemini can now browse the web on your behalf.
The idea is that you give Gemini a goal – like ‘find the best-reviewed hiking books for under £100 that are currently in stock nearby’ – and it goes off to do the legwork. It scours sites, compares data and presents you with the finished results.
This one’s actually coming ahead of the big Android 17 rollout, with Google confirming it’ll launch sometime in June.
Intelligent autofill makes form-filling much easier
Filling out forms is easily one of the most frustrating parts of using a smartphone – even with autofill tech – and Google knows it.
Android 17’s Intelligent Autofill aims to boost that experience by using Gemini to better understand more complex forms. While the current autofill is great for basic names and emails, it often struggles with more specific data or with sites that are strangely formatted. Gemini is designed to recognise these fields more accurately across both apps and the web, making sign-ups, delivery, and payment much more fluid.
Whether it’s filling in passport details for a flight or specific documentation for a work form, Gemini can pull that data from your device and slot it into the right place. Now, it’s not exactly the flashiest feature Google announced, but in daily life, it might be the one you appreciate most.
Rambler makes voice dictation way better
Voice dictation is great in theory, but in practice, it usually captures every um, ah and awkward mid-sentence correction – but Google’s new Rambler looks to fix this.
It’s a natural voice dictation tool that essentially cleans up your speech as you go. It automatically strips out filler words, adjusts your tone for better clarity and, most impressively, understands when you’ve changed your mind. If you restart a sentence halfway through, Rambler realises the first half was a mistake and removes the redundant information.
You can even use your voice to tweak the output after you’ve finished speaking, essentially editing the text without ever touching the keyboard. It also supports switching between languages on the fly, making it a very handy tool for multilingual users.
Android has always been the king of customisation, and Google is taking things to the next level with Create My Widget, which lets you describe exactly what widget you want on your home screen and have Gemini build it for you.
Instead of scrolling through a list of pre-made widgets that don’t quite fit your needs, you can just tell Gemini what you want, ranging from basic timers to complex widgets that pull information from online, for, say, creating a widget listing kid-friendly activities and events to do in your area that weekend.
These aren’t just static widgets either; they’ll update and function exactly like traditional ones, allowing you to get more information that’s relevant to you without having to open apps or search the web.
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