Google has been slowly rolling out a redesign of Gemini overlay on Android and more beta users are now seeing it as of Monday morning.
The Gemini overlay that opens when you say “Hey Google,” long-press the power button, or swipe up from the bottom corners has shrunk a great deal with this redesign. On the Pixel Launcher, it perfectly covers the Google Search bar. It’s now a text field that just has a ‘plus’ menu, microphone, and Gemini Live shortcut.
Old vs. new
There’s a prominent blue/purple glow around the overlay and circular voice button. You tap “Ask Gemini” for text input, while the camera shortcut has been moved into the plus. Google has removed the “Good morning, afternoon, or evening” greeting, as well as the shortcut to open the full app in the top-right corner and the drag handle to enter split-screen multitasking.
This overlay can expand to a maximum of four full lines of text for particular long queries.
There are also tweaks to the Gemini app’s homepage. The Ask Gemini field moves the camera shortcut into the ‘plus’ menu: Camera, Gallery, Files, and Drive. (The last two options are only available for Gemini Advanced.)
Additionally, the Gemini Live shortcut has been moved into the pill-shaped bar, which is now thinner and removes the separator line above it. Google has also gotten rid of the more elaborate text input animation for a simple circle around the microphone when it’s active.
As of Monday, we’re seeing this overlay redesign after force stopping the Gemini/Google app on quite a few Pixel devices — but not Samsung or OnePlus — enrolled in the Google app beta (version 16.1.43). It’s not yet consistently appearing on phones running the stable channel version of the app. This is showing up on free Google Accounts, Gemini Advanced, and Workspace accounts.
Add 9to5Google to your Google News feed.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
