Here's how you can try out Gemini-enhanced Google Assistant on Nest devices

Google has been planning to enhance Assistant on smart displays and speakers with Gemini for a while now. The company announced these intentions back in August. This experience began rolling out for some Nest users earlier this month. Now Google has published a new support page detailing how to try out “AI-powered answers from Google Assistant with help from Gemini.”

In the support document, Google describes this experience as an experiment. When Assistant leans on Gemini for help, “you’ll hear a chime before Google Assistant responds with an AI-powered answer.” For the answer, Assistant uses an “LLM to respond to a wider range of questions and provide more in-depth.”

Unlike when answering basic questions like “what’s the weather,” Assistant will use a more natural-sounding voice when it’s tapping into Gemini models for smarter responses. It appears users will also have the ability to change this voice with other natural sounding voices. To do this you’ll need to tap on the Google Home icon, access Settings, tap on the Assistant icon, then head over to Assistant voice & sounds.

This feature has not been widely rolled out yet, as it’s just a Public Preview. As a result, you’ll need to be a Nest Aware subscriber to start testing the functionality. You’ll also need to meet a few requirements.

What you need to begin

If you’re interested in trying out the feature, you’ll first need a Nest Audio or Nest Mini (2nd gen) as these are the only supported devices at the moment. Assuming you’ve joined the Public Preview, you’ll need to enable “Experimental AI features” and Voice Match. You’ll also need to be over 18 and in the US.

What can Assistant with help from Gemini do?

As Google explains, this new functionality will allow you to:

• Learn more about a topic: You could ask “Can giraffes talk to each other?” to learn about giraffe communication, habitat, and more.
• Ask follow-up questions: You can always say “Hey Google” to ask follow-up questions.
• Interrupt Google Assistant’s response at any time: Just say “Hey google” and ask for more information or change your prompt.

If you start testing out this experiment, the tech giant warns:

• Don’t rely on these answers as medical, legal, financial, or other professional advice.
• These answers do not represent Google’s views and should not be attributed to Google.
• Double-check these answers as they may be inaccurate or inappropriate answers about people.