Newsletter
The Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro will get the new Google Assistant-powered multilingual voice typing feature that Google introduced with the Pixel 8 series earlier this month. The company hasn’t specified a timeline but says the feature will roll out to last year’s Pixels “soon.” The Pixel 6 series doesn’t seem to be getting it, though the lineup does support voice typing.
Google is readying multilingual voice typing for the Pixel 7
The Pixel 8 series brought new AI advancements to Google’s smartphone lineup. The Tensor G3 processor powering the latest Pixels itself is heavily focused on on-device AI processing. While camera features like Best Shot and Magic Editor received a lot of praise, multilingual voice typing is an impressive new addition too. This feature can seamlessly detect languages when you’re voice typing via the Google Assistant in Gboard.
As long as you speak in a supported language, Gboard can detect what you’re saying and type out your message accordingly. You don’t need to manually set a language for the dictation. This feature is primarily useful for multilingual speakers. They can speak freely in any language and Google’s natural language processing will work its magic to type the message. After the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, this ability is now coming to the Pixel 7 series.
Google hasn’t officially announced this but a support page for Assistant voice typing confirms that multilingual voice typing will be available on the 2022 flagships. “If you use multiple languages, Assistant voice typing can now automatically detect your spoken language seamlessly available on Pixel 8+ (coming soon to Pixel 7),” the support page states. It’s unclear how “soon” the feature will trickle down to the older models, though.
As said earlier, the Pixel 6 series also supports voice typing via Assistant, and so does the Pixel Fold. The Pixel 6 was the first Google phone to ship with a custom Tensor processor. However, the aforementioned support page doesn’t confirm if the 2021 Pixels will get multilingual voice typing. We might get a confirmation once the rollout for the Pixel 7 series begins. Stick around for more details.
A language tag will denote the detected language
While this feature detects your spoken language accurately most of the time, there may be times when it gets things wrong. The new “Language tag” comes in handy during those situations. It shows the language that was detected by AI as you speak. If the detected language is wrong, you can set things right immediately. Google always lets you manually switch languages if auto-detection is failing.