Google is giving one of the Samsung Galaxy S25's new AI tools to its own Pixel 9 phones as well as last year's Galaxy S24 series, allowing more users to try out Gemini's Talk Live shortcut.
The rollout of this feature to phones beyond Samsung's brand-new flagships was confirmed in a Google blog last week. Though I'd hardly blame you if you were too distracted by Samsung's fresh crop of devices to read the small print on this.
In a nutshell, the feature offers a quick way to start a live chat with Gemini, based on what you're looking at on-screen. Pressing and holding the power button or using a voice command to summon the Gemini overlay while looking at an image, video or document offers new chips above the standard prompt box.
Tapping one of these then feeds what you're looking at to Gemini before it starts the live chat mode. This could be the URL and page data of your subject, or the whole file if you have it saved locally.
For reference, I was able to use this feature on a Pixel 9 Pro XL running version 1.0.686588308 of Gemini and version 16.2.40 of the Google app. I couldn't find the feature on a Galaxy S24 Ultra however.
By default, the video/image/file auto-submits to Gemini when tapping the Ask about button. However, a long press of the chips will allow you to turn this on or off as you see fit.
Limited AI exclusivity — as it should be
While we couldn't have guessed the timeline, the fact that Google would add a feature or two introduced by the Galaxy S25 to its own phones was inevitable. We saw this happen last year with Circle to Search, a feature that was first shown off on the Galaxy S24 series but quickly arrived on the Pixel 8 series.
A year later, Circle to Search is now available on the majority of new Android devices, which we assume will be the fate of Gemini Talk Live too in the long run.
It’s perhaps a little annoying for Galaxy S25 early adopters who thought they were getting more of an exclusivity period. But Pixels and other phones getting access to Circle to Search has not detracted from its utility, and nor will it for Gemini Talk Live.
The Galaxy S25 series offers plenty of other unique AI features, such as its Now Brief and cross-app actions. And users will be able to try them out for themselves from February 7 when the S25, S25 Plus and Galaxy S25 Ultra all go on sale.
Meanwhile, the Google Pixel 9 series has been on sale since last August. The Pixel 9a budget model could be coming in just two month's time depending on who you believe. The next flagship Google phones, assumed to be called the Pixel 10 series, are expected this summer.
