Exciting news for Google Gemini enthusiasts! You can now pull up your friendly AI chatbot right from the comfort of your iPhone's lock screen, thanks to a fresh update that was initially noticed by 9to5Google. What this means is that you can now summon Gemini Live—Google's fairly real-time voice feature—all before accessing your phone, just by adding a neat little Gemini widget to your lock screen.

Get chatting with Gemini Live straight from your iPhone's lock screen. Image Credits: Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch

As we eagerly anticipate Apple's version of an AI-driven Siri—which, unfortunately, is expected to hit a few snags until 2027, competition in the AI arena is heating up with suppliers stepping up their game to provide iPhone users with their very own AI assistants. This might give iPhone fans a tantalizing taste of the potential that LLMs and voice assistants can offer. Even though Apple's LLM-powered Siri may eventually offer tighter integration with other iPhone features once it rolls out.

ChatGPT’s iOS app also throws in the option for users to bring up OpenAI's surprisingly quick voice feature, Advanced Voice Mode, right from the lock screen.

Besides Gemini Live, the updated Gemini app also bundles in various other useful lock screen widgets. Picture this—you can take pictures using your iPhone camera and share them directly on Gemini. Or you could make a note of reminders and schedule calendar events. Or even go right into a text chat with Gemini in a jiffy.

Just last Monday, Google made a statement that come later March, they would be rolling out a feature allowing Gemini users on Android to query their AI chatbot about video and visible content, and get real-time responses. These are the spanking new features of Project Astra, a side project by Google DeepMind focusing on AI, that are gradually being integrated into the Gemini app. For now, these features will be exclusively available for Google's $20-a-month Gemini Advanced subscribers.