Google reveals how the upcoming Android Auto AI message summaries will work
Following Google's announcement — alongside the Samsung Galaxy S24 launch — that Android Auto AI summaries were on the way, the company has now published more information on how this feature would work. This feature will allow Google Assistant to summarize those long texts and lively group chats for safer driving.
Initially announced just as an 'Android Auto' feature, Google has clarified that its powerful Google Assistant AI will actually power these helpful summaries. This makes sense since Android Auto heavily relies on Assistant for voice interactions. Additionally, Google's support documentation notes the feature could work on "Assistant-enabled Android devices," potentially opening the door for this smart messaging tool to work on headphones and other gear in the future — as noted by 9to5Google.
While it sounds like this is a feature that would be beneficial for all your messaging needs, don't expect every message to get the AI treatment. At this time, only messages over 40 words, and multiple messages sent in quick succession from the same person or group chat, will trigger the AI summaries. Anything that does not meet the aforementioned criteria will be read as a normal message — just like it has worked in the past.
How AI summaries will work on Android Auto | Source: Google
However, it's important to note that AI summaries in your car will not be turned on by default. This is a feature that will need to be enabled manually via your Android Auto Settings. You can opt in by tapping on "Play AI message summaries" under "Notifications." Additionally, Google will prompt you for permission the first time it has a summary ready, at which point you can either approve or decline to have either the AI-summarized version or the regular version of your message read out loud.
With everything going the way of AI nowadays, it's natural to wonder about privacy implications. This is probably why Google included a few lines about this in the support documentation, assuring users that their messages and summaries aren't saved anywhere, and the interactions won't be used to train Google's language models (LLMs).
While the original announcement of this upcoming feature focused heavily on the use of Gemini throughout the Galaxy's AI features, the company didn't explicitly state if Gemini in particular is at work here. However, with Gemini now present as a Google Assistant alternative on mobile devices, our best guess is that it will be powering this feature as well. In the meantime, we eagerly await this rollout and the promise of a less distracting commute.
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