- Gemini ‘Audio Overview’ will read you an AI-generated PDF summary
- The sound clips, lasting between 2 and 10 minutes, will be recorded in Drive.
- Google regularly adds more PDF power via Gemini
Google makes it even easier to digest the content of that PDF you’ve been putting off reading with new AI-powered audio previews.
Rather than just reading the entire PDF content to you, Gemini will provide you with conversational, podcast-style audio summaries of long, text-heavy documents, such as contracts.
For now, it’s rolling out to web versions of the PDF viewer in Google Drive – it’s unclear if this will also apply to the app version.
Google adds new PDF audio summaries
A new “Audio Presentation” button appears in the top bar for eligible accounts, prompting the Gemini side panel to open. Gemini must then generate the summary before it can be played via the “Play” button.
As this may take a few minutes, users can receive an email notification when the file is ready. The audio files, typically lasting between two and ten minutes, are also saved to a new “Audio Previews” folder in Google Drive, which can then be accessed on any device, including the app.
“This feature is powered by the same underlying technology as NotebookLM’s popular Audio Overview feature,” Google added.
For now, the feature is not limited to English summaries, but it can also only digest English PDFs.
Google Workspace Business Standard/Plus and Enterprise Standard/Plus will benefit from the feature commercially. The Google One AI Pro/Ultra, AI Ultra for Business, and AI Pro for Education plans will also have audio previews in PDF format.
More generally, PDFs are clearly a major area of interest for Google. In August, Gemini gained access to a 1 million token pop-up to decrypt even larger PDFs. Just before that, in June, Google added summary cards to the Gemini sidebar to display relevant information and suggest next steps.
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