Google recently renamed its AI chatbot from Bird to Gemini and began rolling it out across all of its products, including as an alternative to Android's Assistant

And now the search giant wants to put Gemini directly into headphones; a code string discovered by 9to5Google in a beta version of the Google app suggests an expanded range of availability

Gemini is also the name of a powerful family of artificial intelligence models that drive the new chatbot as well as many of Google's other generative AI tools

It is not clear when or in what form the headphone feature will appear, but the string of code indicates that Google is serious about leveraging the Gemini brand

A string in the code for the new beta version of the Google app states, "The Gemini mobile app is working on expanding availability to be accessible on headphones"

Currently, even with Gemini enabled on an Android phone, using the Pixel Buds Pro to activate the Smart Assistant will call Google Assistant In other words, you will not get the natural language responses or complex reasoning that Gemini does

However, if the code is correct, it means that current and future devices with access to the Assistant in the future will be able to call the Gemini app to respond instead

Google has stated that it plans to focus on Android and iOS for the initial rollout of Gemini, making it available on iOS through the Google app and on Android as an alternative to the Assistant

While voice is not the main focus of the Gemini chatbot, it needed a voice interface to replace the Assistant; like ChatGPT Voice, you can speak to the Assistant and get a response in natural language You can talk to the AI as if it were a human being

Gemini is offered as an opt-in alternative to Android's Assistant, but Google has yet to update its smart home, wearable, and in-car tools to use conversational AI

This means that Google plans to roll out more broadly and replace the Assistant with a wider range of devices, especially more personal and conversational devices