Your Android phone just got a major Gemini upgrade for music fans – and it’s free

The next time you can’t remember the name of that song that’s stuck in your head, Gemini might be able to help you.

One lesser-known feature of Google Assistant was the ability to identify a song, either by letting it listen to a track that was playing or by humming the tune. Pixel phones have a similar feature built in, but if you were on another Android device, you were just left wondering since Assistant switched to Gemini (or you resorted to the Google app or a third-party app like Shazam).

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Figuring out the name of a song is getting a little easier this week, as Google has quietly given Gemini the ability to name that tune. There hasn’t been an official announcement, but over the past several weeks, users have noticed a new “Search a song” button at the bottom of the Gemini assistant.

It was there on my Pixel 9 Pro when I checked.

How to use Gemini’s song search

When you tap on “Search a song,” a pulsating orb will appear to show that the app is listening. If you hum a tune or if a song is playing loudly enough in the background, Gemini will compile a list of potential matches, ranked by percentage of closeness.

This appears to be the exact feature that’s in Google Search. It wasn’t built or fine-tuned specifically for Gemini, but it does provide a useful new feature for Google’s AI assistant.

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I was also able to access the feature through the Gemini app by asking it to identify a song, but not through Gemini Live. When I tried identifying a real song playing through both the app and the Assistant version, Gemini was quick to answer with the right song.

Perhaps my humming skills were the issue, but the humming alternative didn’t work as well. When I tried twice through the assistant, the actual song I thought I was humming was third on the list both times and wasn’t present at all through the app.

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While this isn’t a new feature, what is new — or at least what’s back — is the ability to search for a song with a voice prompt.

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