The company is adding the AI tool to its Messages app, which means Gemini will appear alongside friends, ready to chat with users just by texting

Google will now let Gemini, its AI assistant, send messages to users.

The company is adding the AI tool to its Messages app. That means Gemini will appear alongside friends, ready to chat with users just by texting.

When chatting with Gemini, the introduction encourages users to “draft messages” – so that people can chat with the AI system about their responses to friends, for instance. It can also be used to “brainstorm ideas, plan events or simply have a fun conversation without leaving the Messages app”, the company said.

The new update comes amid growing criticism of Google’s Gemini AI. Last week, Google had to take parts of its functionality offline because of a controversy over the fact that it was generating racially diverse but incorrect historical images.

Users found that asking for pictures of Nazi soldiers or the US founding fathers would generate images mostly or solely of women, for instance. Google accepted that the tool was “missing the mark” and stopped the system from making images of people.

The introduction of Gemini into Messages is only possible on Android phones, and only available to those who are part of Google’s beta programme.

It came amid a number of new Android updates – many of which were focused on AI. Android Auto can now automatically summarise long messages and busy chats, for instance, as well as suggesting relevant response that can be swiftly chosen when driving.

Android will also be able to generate captions for images, a feature it said had been designed “with blind and low-vision communities”. It also added new accessibility features to Google Maps, so that it can identify important locations and read information about them out loud.