Gemini Overlay Rolling Out ‘Ask About This PDF’ On Android

As previewed at I/O 2024 in May, the Gemini overlay on Android is widely rolling out its “Ask about this PDF” integration.

When looking at a PDF in Files by Google’s new viewer, launching the Gemini overlay reveals a new “Ask about this PDF” chip. So far, this is only available in the Files app and does not work in Google Drive’s viewer, which just shows “Ask about this screen” like in any other app.

Tapping Ask about this PDF will start uploading the document, while you can enter text into the “Ask Gemini” field. The send button is grayed out until that process is complete.

The answer will be shown as an overlay with the PDF in the background. You can enter more questions afterwards.

This is exactly the same as uploading a file to the Gemini app and having the conversation there, but the experience is slightly more seamless.

Document upload is only available for Gemini Advanced customers and takes advantage of the model’s long context window.

We’re seeing this widely rolled out with version 16.0.5 of the Google app, which is currently in beta and should soon hit stable.