Google Gemini AI app now ready to assist in UK and Europe

Google’s high-profile Gemini AI assistant app is finally available in the UK and Europe.

While Google claimed that it rolled out its new Gemini AI app assistant globally back in early May, it omitted the whole of Europe in that equation (unless you went through third party app stores). Now the Gemini AI app has started rolling out across the continent.

Having checked from my UK location, I can confirm that it’s available to download for free now on the Google Play Store for Android. You should also find that you can activate it from a Google Assistant pop up.

Indeed, upon opening the Google Gemini app up for the first time on supported phones, it’ll offer to take over the usual role of Google Assistant in managing all your usual tasks, and will respond to your usual ‘Hey Google’ prompt or physical input. You can still switch between the two assistants in the Settings menu.

As for iPhone users, they’ll be able to access Gemini from a new tab in the Google app some time over the coming weeks.

If you missed the announcement earlier in the year, Google Gemini is the new name for Google’s Bard AI chatbot, and is so named for the large language model (LLM) that powers it.

Within this context, Gemini is Google’s answer to ChatGPT, OpenAI’s pioneering AI chatbot. It’s a multimodal AI tool, which means that you can ask it a question or set it a task using natural language, code, or visual media, and it’ll come up with an often scarily incisive response, all delivered in a conversational manner.