Google Gemini’s AI Phone Calls Face Accents, Noisy Stores and Awkward Hang-Ups

Voice assistants that handle phone calls are more accepted now than they were during the days of Duplex. Call-screening features are common, and whether you’re using a Pixel, Samsung, or iPhone, your built-in assistant may intercept unknown callers and ask why they’re calling.

Can Gemini handle real-world phone calls?

However, this functionality—and similarly hyped AI translation features—often falls short. Calls are unpredictable, and the person on the other end may assume it’s a spam call and hang up.

What happens if Gemini can’t understand someone’s accent? Could it put a store clerk into an endless loop of repeated requests? If a business lacks the necessary tools, will the bot know how to politely explain the situation, or will it simply end the call?

“That’s exactly what we want to continue testing,” a Google spokesperson says. “With this experiment, we’re looking forward to users testing different cases so we can continue to improve functionality across accents and noisy environments.” Google also says Gemini will “politely” hang up if a business can’t accommodate a user’s needs.

AI assistants could soon handle more business calls

The experiment points to a future in which robots could take over more business calls. Companies are also testing artificial intelligence tools that interact directly with customers, including California pizza chain Pizza My Heart. The restaurant lets customers order pizza by sending a message to Jimmy the Surfer’s chatbot.

It may not be long before you can call a restaurant on your mobile phone and speak with its AI instead of a human employee. Eventually, machines could be talking to one another—perhaps just debating whether to order stuffed crust or not.