Key Takeaways
- Android 16 might introduce a new API allowing Gemini to control apps directly, such as booking flights or ordering food.
- Recent developer docs in Android 16 DP1 suggest a new method of app functions integrated into system features.
- The mysterious API hints at app functions like ordering food, signaling the potential for an improved digital assistant.
Google is all-in on Gemini. The powerful AI is integrated everywhere, and it is even the default voice assistant on many of the latest Android phones. But so far, it has lacked the ability to control parts of the phone and third party apps the same way Google Assistant could. That is, until Android 16 drops next year.
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Not sure what’s up with Gemini? Here are the goods
Google looks set to include a new API that lets services like Gemini perform actions on behalf of users inside applications (via Android Authority). A lot of details are still missing, but Android 16s new app functions feature will let Gemini control apps in a way Google Assistant never could.
Mysterious app functions in developer docs
It all began when a mysterious set of APIs appeared in Google’s developer docs following the Android 16 DP1 earlier this week. The docs mention an app’s functionality can be integrated into various system features, hinting at a new method of app functions.
Gemini currently depends on extensions to interact with external services. For example, there’s a Calendar extension, and a web services extension to give Gemini access to Google Hotels, and so on. Gemini is able to pull data from these extensions, but these extensions only let Gemini call on the backend APIs, rather than control the app itself. You can ask Gemini to tell you when your flight arrives, but you can’t ask it to book a flight for you.
But the mystery documentation hints at a new API that lets apps work directly with Gemini. Google’s description of app functions remains vague, but there is an example of an app function in the doc.
“For example, a function to order food could be identified as ‘order food.'” the example reads. It seems like apps could create functions by defining a service that Gemini could execute.
This could be the assistant we have been dreaming about
Google teased a new Google Assistant back in 2019, using your voice alone to multitask across apps thanks to a helpful, personal digital assistant. It sounds a lot like what AI agents today are promising. Given everything Google has been working on, it seems likely we could finally see a true AI use app functions with Android 16 on next year’s Pixel.
