Summary
- Google is reportedly testing a “Circle to Search”-like feature within the Gemini Live screen-sharing mode, indicated by a floating pencil icon in a beta build that allows users to circle elements on their screen for focused AI interaction.
- This potential addition aims to streamline visual interaction with Gemini Live, offering a more direct conversational approach compared to existing methods like Google Lens or standard Circle to Search, which typically involve separate search initiations.
- While the public release of this feature remains uncertain, its appearance in a beta and Google’s history of integrating “Circle to Search” into other services suggests it could eventually become a part of Gemini Live’s capabilities.
Google’s visual search features have a major overlap problem right now. There’s Circle-to-Search (CtS), Google Lens, Gemini Live‘s screen sharing and camera mode, and visual search via Google Search.
Now, to further complicate things and add to the feature overlap, Google seems to be testing adding CtS-like functionality directly within Gemini Live’s camera mode.
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Highlighted by the folks over at Android Authority after digging into a new Google app beta build (version 16.14.39), Gemini could soon surface a floating pencil icon overlay that only shows up when you trigger a Gemini Live screen-sharing session.
As you might have expected, tapping the pencil icon activates the ability to scribble or circle elements on the screen, essentially allowing you to point out exactly what you want to talk about. As of right now, the same pencil icon doesn’t seem to appear in the camera/video Gemini Live mode.
Narrow down your conversational on-screen search
Via Lens, you’d have to take a screenshot of the page you want to learn about and feed it to the Google app. Via CtS, you’d need to trigger the on-screen tool to trigger a Google search about the on-screen elements. Via Gemini Live, you’d essentially follow the same workflow as CtS, but instead of triggering a Google search and reading context, you’d be able to talk to the conversational assistant about what it (and you) see — and specifically about what you narrowed down by circling.
It is currently unclear if and when the feature might make its way to the public, though considering how CtS is Google’s star child, and the company has readily integrated Lens and CtS-like functionalities into other services, it is very plausible that the feature will be added to Gemini Live’s arsenal soon.
