Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority
TL;DR
- A new, unreleased “Circle Screen” option was spotted in a promotional video for Gemini.
- However, this feature was labeled as “(DF),” likely referring to it as a DogFood version used by employees for beta testing unreleased features.
- This unreleased “Circle Screen” feature could allow Gemini users to circle a part of their screen to narrow down the context of their search query, similar to what Circle to Search does for Google Search queries.
Circle to Search has been a highly useful addition to Android flagships. It places Google Search at your fingertips, making searching and querying second nature to using the phone. Similarly, Google’s Gemini AI digital assistant is slowly but surely changing how we use our phones, with features like Gemini Apps (previously called Extensions) tapping into apps to supercharge the AI. But what if Gemini could work more like Circle to Search? Google seems to have had the same thought, and the company accidentally shared part of that vision.
Google’s Instagram account recently shared a video showing off Gemini’s screen-sharing capabilities. Watch the video, and you’ll see that it’s a nifty feature, but if you’re an avid Android Authority reader, it’s nothing you didn’t already know about. However, you need to pay close attention to what’s being shown on the screen. At the beginning of the video, Google shows off a Gemini overlay with a previously undiscovered “Circle Screen (DF)” option.
The DF here very likely means “DogFood,” which is a term that is often used when a company internally tests its own products before releasing them to users. In this scenario, the Circle Screen option in Gemini is being internally beta-tested by Google employees, and one of them inadvertently used the DogFood version of the app to shoot the above video.
Several Android flagships already have Circle to Search, but it integrates with Google Search rather than Gemini. Yes, Google Search has AI Overviews, but that’s a roundabout way of using AI search, and Google is no stranger to overlapping products that do the same thing. Gemini has its own “Ask about screen” feature, which attaches a screenshot of the whole screen as additional context for your search query.
We presume that a “Circle Screen” feature would seemingly let users circle a part of the screen to attach as additional context, helping them narrow down to a specific object displayed on the screen rather than the entirety of it.
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Yes, Google would then have two ways for users to circle their screen for searching. There’s a chance that both the ways, Gemini’s Circle Screen and the Circle to Search feature, would co-exist. However, there’s also a chance that Circle to Search could get absorbed into Gemini as their functionality would considerably overlap. It remains to be seen what direction Google chooses if the feature ever comes to end users.
Outside of this reel video, Google hasn’t yet spoken about “Circle Screen” as an option in Gemini. We haven’t yet located it in existing Google app versions. It’s likely that the feature currently only exists in internal dog food versions of the app. As such, it may or may not be released to the public. We’ll keep you updated when we learn more.
