Google recently launched two significant new features for its Gemini AI assistant: Canvas, a collaborative workspace, and Audio Overviews, an audio summarization tool. These enhancements boost the AI assistant's practicality and user experience.

Canvas: Real-time Collaborative Document Creation

Canvas provides users with an interactive workspace for collaborative document and code creation with AI. It supports real-time display of changes and includes an integrated chat interface for discussing modifications.

Notably, Canvas generates instant previews of HTML and React code, and completed documents can be directly exported to Google Docs. Industry analysts point out the similarity to a similarly named feature launched by ChatGPT last fall.

Audio Overviews: Transforming Text into Conversational Audio

Audio Overviews allows users to convert written content, such as documents, presentations, and research reports, into podcast-style conversations analyzed and discussed by two AI hosts.

Google showcased this technology by converting the output of its updated free in-depth research feature into AI audio podcasts. These audio summaries initially appeared on the NotebookLM platform. It's important to note that, like other AI-generated content, these audio summaries may contain inaccuracies, and users should exercise appropriate judgment.

Currently, Audio Overviews supports English only and is accessible via web and mobile platforms. Users can download and share the created audio files.

The Expanding Gemini Ecosystem

Since the beginning of the year, Google has been actively expanding its Gemini ecosystem. Recent updates include:

  • Gemini Live added video and screen sharing support, initially launching on Samsung Galaxy S24/S25 and Pixel 9 devices.
  • Google plans to replace Google Assistant with Gemini as the default AI assistant for Android.
  • Three new model variants were introduced: Gemini 2.0 Flash (base model), Flash Lite (cost-effective version), and 2.0 Pro (with expanded context processing capabilities).
  • Outside the EU, Switzerland, and the UK, Gemini can now access users' Google Search history, providing more contextually relevant responses.
  • The platform gained native multimodal capabilities for generating and editing images, and understanding YouTube videos.

According to Google, Canvas and Audio Overviews are now available globally to Gemini and Gemini Advanced users.