Google Photos to Introduce AI-Powered Narration for Memories with Gemini

Google Photos has a Gemini-narrated Memory slideshow feature in the works

Key Takeaways Google Photos' upcoming update may use Gemini AI to narrate Memories. As it stands, the Memories feature recalls meaningful moments through personalized slideshows. The upcoming Gemini integration may provide introspective narration for these Memories based on stored personal data. Thanks to Google Photos' ease of storing and managing all your photos and videos in one place, the automated Memories feature combines elements of a scrapbook and multimedia journal to remind you what's important in life. A recent review of in-progress code predicts it will soon employ Google's ever-expanding Gemini AI to narrate the curated multimedia show that helps you relive the most impactful times in your recent life (via Android Authority and AssembleDebug). What magic the imminent Photos updates hold And what the algorithm can do with your stored media An APK teardown of the Google Photos 7.1 software uncovered code strings showing the upcoming UI drawing attention to the new feature, and giving an approximation of when Gemini would be finished compiling narration to be overlaid on the Memories playback. Related Hey Google, where's Google Photos for Android TV? Apple does it with iCloud Photos; why can't you, Google? 6 The Memories slideshow is great for recapturing the past. Currently, the tool decides on the best-framed and most consequential images and movies in your collection, and plays them back with light stylization and typically soothing music. If you're not aware of it, or it's temporarily slipped your mind, it can potentially hit you like a ton of bricks and leave you lightly sobbing as it touches on moving milestones from, for example, the first several months of getting to know your new furry family members (speaking from experience, of course). You make the good moments, Memories reminds you And Gemini could do the talking, if you want As-is, the simple accompanying music gives you freedom to contextualize the often personal snapshots without external commentary. While LLMs, and AI in general, have seemingly progressed lightyears since just 2023, it's hard to imagine Gemini really looking into your soul and delivering perfectly suited narration in its current form. Related The Pixel 9 finally fixes my biggest Google Photos complaint Ultra HDR is no longer ultra annoying 3 Because this is an early catch, though, there's no concrete indication Gemini's recap will apply broadly to Memories as a whole. More realistically, it could be limited to the scope of the current "Year in Review" feature. But the upcoming contextualiztion tool could theoretically access other parts of your Google data and Gemini input to offer impressively introspective narration. Keeping that in mind, it looks for now like the feature's activated by an opt-in toggle. It probably won't immediately involve Gemini digging into our deepest secrets and confronting us with psychic-adjacent analysis of our past. Yet. The unearthed code indicates that the Gemini-driven recap could be ready for action in December. Related Magic Eraser vs. Clean Up: I put the photo-editing tools through five tough tests Apple might have some catching up to do 8

Google Gemini could soon narrate your Google Photos memories

If you never used Google Photos, you may not have heard of the Memories feature. Memories is simple enough, it gathers several images from your library and presents them to you in a slideshow. Usually, these memories take on a certain theme, for example all of your Christmas photos from one year. However, they can feel a bit impersonal, but that could soon change, with a recent APK teardown by Android Authority has revealed a fascinating addition. The code lines found in Google Photos indicate that Gemini will be used to create the recaps, but more importantly, it seems that the AI will be able to narrate them as well. Thankfully, it appears that the feature can be turned on and off, so users have a choice on if it will be included. It will be interesting to see if this same feature will be included for any images generated by Google Gemini or if it is only for camera shots. The main question we have is what these recaps will actually sound like and which voice will be used. AI voice generation has improved massively in recent years, with Microsoft releasing one so convincing that it has become a concern. So it will be interesting to see how much choice we have in the voice. However, the bigger question is where Gemini will get the information for the narration. It is possible that the data could be gathered from the images themselves, or be pulled from other Google Services but this is conjecture at this point. This isn't the only change we've seen for Google Photos, as it was recently announced that Google was giving users more control over what memories they will actually see. Google had previously introduced the option to block certain things from appearing in memories, but it was limited. The more recent change has made it so that you can limit the amount you see certain people or places, rather than removing them completely. According to the code, it looks like Gemini's recap narration is aiming for a December release. Of course, if you find this new feature to be a deal breaker, we have a breakdown of the best Google Photos alternatives to help you pick a different service.

Gemini AI could soon be adding narration to your memories in Google Photos

If you're a Google Photos user, you'll know the app has a Memories feature that brings up older pictures and videos from your collections, reminding you of trips and other special occasions - and it seems Memories is in line to get an AI upgrade in the near future. As spotted by Android Authority, the latest version of Google Photos on Android comes with hidden code mentioning Gemini, the Google AI chatbot. The code isn't currently active, but the Android Authority team was able to enable it, to a limited extent. The key new option the code enables is for "Gemini-powered memories", which will apparently turn on "recap memories narrated by Gemini". Currently, slideshows in Memories are accompanied by a music soundtrack. Presumably, this means the AI will analyze what's in your photos, and prepare a running commentary for you - but it remains to be seen whether this will enhance the experience of looking back through time, or just feel weird. There's no doubt Google's AI tools are getting more advanced: the NotebookLM program, for example, can create incredibly realistic, podcast-style audio 'discussions' from your documents and notes - and on the whole they sound fantastic. It's possible that Gemini recaps in Google Photos will be able to sound natural and casual enough not to be jarring, but it's not as if the AI really knows what the pictures and videos show. It'll just be relying on image recognition, location tags, and some generative AI. To really be useful, Google Photos may have to give Gemini access to lots of information about your library, including the names of the people in your images. Still, we shouldn't judge the feature before it's actually gone live - we'll wait and see how good it is. According to this hidden code, Gemini narration will at least be optional, so you'll be able to turn it off if you don't like it. It's not clear when the feature might be enabled, but considering it's in the app code already, it shouldn't be too far away.

Google Photos could soon use Gemini AI to supercharge your memories (APK teardown)

Google Photos is the photo management app of choice for many users, thanks to its inclusion across Android flagships. Most of us also use it to back up our photos and videos to the cloud and even for photo editing. Since Google has access to all of our images, it has a nifty "Memory" feature that gives us a recap of what we were doing some years ago, or how our kids have grown up over the years. It seems that Google wants to supercharge memories with AI, and it could take Gemini's help to do that.