Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- In the Google app beta version 15.34.32.29.arm64, we found changes to three new extensions for Gemini: WhatsApp, Notifications and Messages.
- The WhatsApp and Messages extensions allow Gemini to read and send messages and make calls through their respective apps.
- The notification extension enables Gemini to send or read Android system notifications.
The tech giant has strategically enhanced Gemini’s functionality with new extensions. After adding extensions to Google apps like Keep, Tasks, and Calendar, along with YouTube and YouTube Music, the latest results suggest that even more exciting additions are on the horizon.
An APK teardown helps predict features that may come to a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
In the Google app version 15.34.32.29.arm64 beta, we were able to enable the toggles for new Gemini extensions for WhatsApp, Google Messages, and Android system notifications. Although they are not working yet, their official descriptions give a glimpse of what they can offer.
The Messages extension works straight-forward and allows you to read and reply to messages using the Google Messages app. Then there is the WhatsApp extension. It can become a real crowd pleaser, allowing you to send messages, read them and even make WhatsApp calls – all with just a voice command.
However, the message extension opens up exciting possibilities. Imagine Gemini summarizing notifications received while you were away, categorizing them by importance, or even performing tasks based on specific app notifications. Imagine this: your mom calls and every alarm in your house starts going off. Okay, that might be extreme, but you get the idea.
Of course, this is all hypothetical for now, and we’ll have to wait a little longer to see these extensions in action for ourselves. For those of us who have used smartphones since the dawn of time, it may seem like overkill to have an AI assistant do all these basic tasks for us, but first-time smartphone users may come to see AI-powered interactions as the default way to navigate their devices. They may even wonder how anyone ever managed without them.
While Google keeps adding third-party apps to Gemini’s growing toolbox, it looks like the race for AI assistant dominance is just beginning. Apple is also expected to roll out some cool new tricks with its AI-infused Siri on the upcoming iPhone 16 series, which debuts on September 9.