Google’s Gemini Nano brings better image-description smarts to its TalkBack vision tool

The Google I/O event is here, and the company is announcing lots of great updates for your Android device. As we heard earlier, Gemini Nano is getting multimodal support, meaning your Android will still process text but with a better understanding of other factors like sights, sounds and spoken language. Now Google has shared that the new tool is also coming to it’s TalkBack feature.

TalkBack is an existing tool that reads aloud a description of an image, whether it’s one you captured or from the internet. Gemini Nano’s multimodal support should provide a more detailed understanding of the image. According to Google, TalkBack users encounter about 90 images each day that don’t have a label. Gemini Nano should be able to provide missing information, such as what an item of clothing looks like or the details of a new photo sent by a friend.

Gemini Nano works directly on a person’s device, meaning it should still function properly without any network connection. While we don’t yet have an exact date for when it will arrive, Google says TalkBack will get Gemini Nano’s updated features later this year.

Catch up on all the news from Google I/O 2024 right here!