Okay, okay… the headline makes Google’s newest daily ‘we stuck AI in this thing‘ update sound much cooler than it is. Docs users can now summon the power of Gemini to turn their boring old text document into an audio version of the same thing.
It won’t turn the minutes from your last company meeting into a full-on audiobook, though that would be a much cooler feature. This one doesn’t work much differently from text-to-speech programs, the first of which was available back in the 1970s. You ask Gemini to read something, and it’ll read it to you. Out loud, obviously.
Sounds like Google
According to the company, the new function is for when “you want to hear your content out loud, absorb information better while reading, or help catch errors in your writing,” with the resulting text-to-speech conversion providing “clear, natural-sounding voices that read your documents aloud.”
With the exception of those “natural-sounding” voices, assigning Gemini to reading a user’s Google Docs pages out loud seems like overkill. Turning words into spoken speech has been possible for many decades without AI intervention. Older methods won’t bulk up Gemini’s daily active user (DAU) stats, so we’ve arrived at this state of affairs.
At least some Google Docs users will find utility in the update. It’s not being pitched as an accessibility feature — those have long existed — but for everyday usage by average users. For those folks, heading to the Tools and then Audio menus will pop out a Listen to this tab option. Click it, and Gemini will read your document to you. Customisation options let listeners choose a default voice and playback speed.
It’s also possible to include the listening function in the document you’re working on, via Insert -> Audio -> Listen to tab. It’s unlikely to make your post-campaign analysis of the Ferret Farmer Association’s annual Ferret-O-Thon any more gripping, but at least you can say you tried.
Google’s Gemini narration of Docs docs is rolling out at present and should be complete by 28 August. It currently only works for English documents, and only in the desktop version of Docs.
