Gemini Live’s voices don’t sound like they should
As we get new models of Google’s AI, there appears to be a knock-on effect that is drastically changing the experience with Gemini Live and the assistant’s customizable voice options.
You might want to point to the recent Gemini Live 3.1 Flash Live update as the catalyst for this, admittedly annoying change, but this appears to happen fairly often, with reports of various voices changing cadence, tone, and even flipping between the preset accent library week to week.
One of the most obvious alterations is to the speech cadence when using the various options. In our testing, the “Capella” option, which mimics a female British accent, has changed or broken down significantly since its introduction, but other regional Gemini Live voice options exhibit similar issues.
Over the past few months, many voice options have deteriorated, and the speech preview sounds almost nothing like the actual experience when interacting with Gemini Live. Speech patterns are much slower, the high-pitched voice is toned down, and at times it sounds Australian or dips back into other, more “standard” American accents when responding to queries or having a back-and-forth conversation.
If you reset the Gemini application, the accent will hold up before slowly morphing into a hybrid-sounding voice – as noted above – that can be quite jarring. You can get an idea of that comparison below:
You might also notice audio artefacts such as crackles, pops, and hisses are quite prominent. This is unrelated, but it appears to be a growing complaint on Google’s Support Forums. It is sporadic and not always replicable with many of the other voice options.
What’s more, many of the voice options are unaffected when using Gemini for quick voice controls or when using the Live feature in-car with Android Auto. It’s not clear whether Google is aware of this, but we have reached out to the company and will respond if we receive a response to our query.
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