After rolling out “Talk Live about this” last week, Gemini Live is now starting to use phone call-style notifications on Android.
Previously, starting Gemini Live and exiting the fullscreen UI would result in a standard notification for “Live with Gemini” that provides instructions and an “End Live mode” button. In the status bar, you’d see a Gemini sparkle icon.
Live with Gemini now makes use of Android’s call-style notification. In place of a user avatar, you get the Gemini Live icon with a big red button for “Hang Up” and “Hold.” Being able to “Continue” without needing to return to the app is convenient.
Meanwhile, next to the status bar time, you get a call chip that shows a live count alongside the sparkle. (However, the count continues even when you’re on hold, so it’s not accurate.)
This Gemini Live notification does not appear on the Pixel Watch and is not treated as a call on Wear OS.
This does a better job emphasizing that Gemini Live is active in the background, which becomes more important when Astra will let you share your screen during conversations.
So far, we’re only seeing this call-style Gemini Live notification on one phone (Pixel 9 Pro running Google app beta version 16.4) out of the several we checked this morning.
This is similar to how the Gemini app on iPhone uses Live Activities.
More on Gemini:
- Gemini 2.0 Flash rolling out to Gemini app on Android, iOS
- Google Photos tones down Gemini’s ‘Ask Photos’ search UI
- Gemini Extensions can be accessed when your Android phone is locked]
- ‘Gemini 2.0 Pro Experimental’ mentioned, but is not here yet [U]
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