Skip to main content

Google Gemini is about to get a lot more useful on your Android phone

Google Gemini app on the Motorola Razr Plus 2024.
Joe Maring / Digital Trends

Google isn’t planning on hitting the breaks on Gemini anytime soon. After first teasing a number of new extensions during Google I/O 2024, a recent APK teardown from Android Authority has revealed a ton of unannounced, useful new features from Gemini that are soon coming to your Android phone. Gemini is expected to get a variety of new extensions that will allow integration into Google services like Keep, Tasks, and Calendar.

Each of the extensions seems to provide useful features, and Android Authority has demo videos showcasing each. With Google Keep, you can now ask Gemini to create new notes and lists, add information to notes, and add or remove items from lists. Google Tasks now lets you use Gemini to create new tasks, including reminders. It’ll also allow you to view existing tasks and show their due dates.

Recommended Videos

The last major extension is for Google Calendar. You’re now able to create new calendar events, view all upcoming calendar events or ones on a specific date, and edit existing calendar events.

These extensions will join already existing ones for Google Flights, Google Hotels, Maps, Workspace, YouTube, and YouTube Music. Earlier reporting also revealed that Google Home is getting an extension that will allow users to control smart home appliances like lights and switches.

Currently, you can set Gemini as your phone’s default voice assistant, but any smart-home-related asks get pushed to Google Assistant first, which slows down responsiveness. The Google Home extension should help cut out the middleman and allow Gemini to execute the command directly.

Another extension is one for the phone app, which essentially does the same thing of cutting out the middleman. Right now, any phone call commands get handled by Google Assistant first; with the extension, Gemini will take this process over.

Lastly, there’s an extension for Utilities. This is an interesting one since it’ll allow Gemini to interact directly with your phone settings and installed apps. It’ll be able to take photos, open apps, and adjust volume on your device. Android Authority speculates that it could also allow you to lock your phone, switch to dark mode, and restart your device, all hands-free.

Ajay Kumar
Former Freelance Writer, Mobile
Ajay has worked in tech journalism for more than a decade as a reporter, analyst, and editor.
From Android 1.0 to Android 16: How Google’s mobile OS has evolved since 2008
Android 16 logo on Google Pixel 6a kept on the edge of a table.

Google I/O 2025 will be livestreaming next week, and software developers from Google are expected to unveil Android 16, which is slated to come out before the summer. The upcoming Android software update is expected to bring a host of new features as well as some returning mechanics from a decade ago.

To hold our excitement for the upcoming conference over, we're going to take a stroll down memory lane with a complete history of Android, from its humble beginnings as a T-Mobile-exclusive mobile tech to an AI-advanced software to grace contemporary smartphones like Google Pixel 9 and Samsung Galaxy S25. Android has come a long way since 2008, and it has a long way to go to be the best mobile software for everyone. That being said, here's a full timeline of Android's evolution.

Read more
Google Chrome is getting an AI-powered scam sniffer for Android phones
Scam warning from Chrome on Android.

Google’s Chrome browser has offered a rich suite of privacy and safety features for a while now. Take, for example, Enhanced Safe Browsing, which was introduced back in 2020. It protects users against unsafe websites and files by using real-time threat detection. 

Three years later, Google switched it from an opt-in mode to a default safety protocol to guard users against phishing attacks, bad extensions, and malicious downloads. Now, the company is deploying its Gemini Nano AI to safeguard smartphone users against potential online scams, especially those hiding as a tech security warning on webpages.

Read more
Google Maps gets a screenshot tool that eases travel planning on your iPhone
AI scanning screenshots and adding details to Google Maps.

A few weeks ago, Google announced a bunch of new features targeted at digital travel planning, such as hotel price tracking and deploying AI as a personal guide. Among them was also a neat trick that could extract address details from screenshots and save them to Google Maps. 

That feature has now started to roll out slowly. Users started receiving it this week, it seems, and earlier today, Google also released a blog update instructing users on how to enable it. For now, it is focused on iOS, but the facility will soon land on Android, as well. 

Read more