Google TV's Gemini Live support and other updates seemingly confirmed by new user survey – here's what to expect

(Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)

Google is asking keen users to pick their favorite feature descriptions
Focus is on Ambient Screensaver info and Gemini Live on Google TV
No details of launch date or device availability just yet

Google has been testing the waters for some interesting new Google TV features, and as a result it's revealed a lot about the upgrades coming to a Google TV set or streamer near you.

It's all happening at the Google TV Advisors Club, which launched in late 2024 to get feedback from Google TV users. And its first targeted survey of Club users asked users with help "trying to figure out the clearest way to describe some exciting new features".

So what's Google been cooking?

What features has Google been asking users about?

We already reported on the fundamental updates coming to Google TV, including Gemini support – but we're getting a little more information about them from the survey.

As Android Police reports, the first feature in the survey is the Ambient Screensaver, which can provide information as well as art; Google's suggested marketing messages talk about how "when you get closer, it switches to an overview of helpful information like time, weather, and news headlines".

There's a lot about Gemini Live on Google TV too. The most detailed proposed messaging talks about having a "natural, free-flowing conversation" with Gemini that you can interrupt if you want to add more detail or change the topic; brainstorming out loud "from finding recipes to planning your next movie-themed party"; exploring new topics by chatting with Gemini; and most interestingly, "practice for interviews, presentations or other important moments with feedback from Gemini."

Again, we knew that Google TV would get Gemini, but the extent to which it support the full flexibility of Gemini Live was unclear – in combination with more far-field microphones in TVs, the idea is clearly that Google TV devices will work as an AI home assistant hub easily.

There's no indication of a release window for these features, or any detail regarding which TVs will get the features first, though they're expect to come to a lot of Google TV sets, which includes several of the best TVs. But if Google's at the stage of testing its marketing ideas, a release can't be very far away.

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Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.