Google has rolled out updated Gemini Audio capabilities built on new Gemini 3.5 models, adding a dedicated transcription tool alongside upgraded live voice features. The launch matters because it targets long-standing weaknesses in AI dictation and voice assistants, such as coping with background noise, interrupted speech and messy filler words, while also expanding language support to over 85 tongues and improving handling of specialist terminology.

The centrepiece is Gemini 3.5 Transcribe, a new model Google says markedly improves on its previous Chirp 3 system, particularly for multilingual accuracy and error rates. It can automatically strip out filler words like "um" and "uh", format text, accept custom vocabulary for jargon or unusual spellings, and identify up to three speakers in pre-recorded audio with word-level timestamps. It launches alongside Gemini 3.5 Live and Live Experimental, which improve real-time interruption handling and visual processing, with the latter also narrating its reasoning step by step; the updates begin rolling out today for macOS Gemini app users and Android's Rambler dictation feature, plus developer preview access via the Gemini API, with Chrome support promised soon.