Gemini will now make phone calls for you, in a narrow early preview

If you have been putting off ringing a shop to ask whether something is in stock, Google has built a machine that will do it instead. Call for Me lets you ask Gemini inside the Gemini app to place the call, and the assistant then speaks to the person on the other end, works through directory menus and waits on hold.

The call goes out from your own personal phone number, dialled directly from your handset.

Google's support page sets out what the assistant is supposed to handle: business hours, product availability, service quotes and similar questions, plus booking, confirming and managing appointments and reservations. The everyday version of that is moving a haircut to another day, asking a hardware store to put an item on hold, reserving patio seating, or making a special request on a restaurant booking such as an outdoor or quiet table.

When someone picks up, Gemini discloses what it is. Google says the assistant states that it is a Google AI assistant calling on a recorded line on your behalf.

You watch it happen. Google says there is a live transcript view and you can take over the conversation at any point, and once the call is finished you get a notification from Gemini on how it went.

The update also lets Gemini share personal information that you approve as part of the calls it makes, which the company says allows it to take a broader set of actions. There are hard stops around that. Call for Me has daily limits, and Google says it cannot call emergency services like 911, complete financial transactions, share sensitive personal information or make telemarketing calls.

Getting to it is the awkward part, because the preview is restricted to US users who own a Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL or Pixel 11 Pro Fold, pay for a Gemini subscription, and have joined the Phone by Google Public Beta, since the feature is not in the regular stable version of the phone app. Even that may not be enough. Google says it is gradually making the feature available to eligible users, so it might not show up yet.

The company was explicit about why the door is this narrow: real-world conversations are nuanced, and it says it needs time to get the feature right before rolling it out more broadly.

Google has been building toward this for a while. Last year it rolled out Ask for Me, which let Gemini call businesses on a user's behalf to ask about things like pricing or services.