At the Google for India 2024 event in New Delhi, Google unveiled several India-centric features, including significant updates to its AI chatbot, Gemini. The tech giant introduced Gemini Live, a real-time verbal communication feature, last month, and it is now expanding its language capabilities to reach a broader audience. Previously available only in English, Gemini Live now supports Hindi and eight other regional Indian languages, underscoring Google’s commitment to making its technology accessible to India’s diverse linguistic population.
During the event, Hema Budaraju, Senior Director of Product Management at Google, emphasized the importance of this update. The new language support allows users to engage with Gemini Live in their native languages, making the AI experience more intuitive and natural. Users can now ask questions verbally in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, and Urdu, with the chatbot providing real-time spoken responses. This functionality aims to bridge the digital divide, especially for non-English speakers, offering an inclusive AI-driven interaction for millions of users in India.
Gemini Live was first introduced as part of the Gemini Advanced subscription in August, but Google later extended it to the free tier on Android devices. This move made the feature more accessible to a wider user base, enabling people to experience AI-powered communication without the need for a subscription. Until now, the feature had been limited to English, but with the addition of nine Indian languages, Google is making strides to cater to India’s multilingual user base. The inclusion of these regional languages reflects the growing demand for localized AI services in India, a country known for its linguistic diversity.
With these updates, users in India can now interact with the chatbot more naturally, asking questions and receiving answers in their preferred language. This expansion not only enhances the usability of Google’s AI services but also sets a precedent for more tech companies to adopt a multilingual approach. The rollout of Gemini Live’s language support marks another milestone in Google’s ongoing efforts to integrate AI into everyday experiences for users in India, reinforcing its position as a leader in the country’s digital transformation.