Google's Gemini Can Now Make Calls for You on Pixel Phones

Google announced Call for Me on Thursday, September 24 — an experimental beta feature that lets the Gemini assistant place phone calls on the user's behalf. It is exclusive to the Pixel 11 series and available in the United States and in English.

Owners need a Gemini subscription and enrolment in the Phone by Google public beta; Google has published instructions on how to take part.

What the assistant does

Call for Me is built for business calls. Gemini can ring a local hardware store to ask whether it stocks a specific tool, or contact a barber to schedule a haircut. The user simply tells Gemini to make the call; the bot may ask follow-up questions for context, then introduces itself and holds a back-and-forth conversation until the request is handled.

If it reaches an automated phone menu, Gemini can navigate it and even wait on hold; the user sees a live transcript on the Pixel and can take over at any time.

Limits and open questions

Google says the feature works best with businesses, and some places are off-limits — emergency services among them. Users can still ask Gemini to dial a specific number: if a tattoo artist has little web presence, "Gemini will try to search for a phone number, but you may provide one as well," a Google spokesperson says. The assistant's voice is the same one used in Gemini Live, even if the user's preferred Gemini voice carries an accent.

WIRED notes that such calls stay unpredictable: the person on the other end may hang up, assuming spam, or struggle to understand the bot. "That is exactly what we want to continue testing," the spokesperson says. "With this experiment, we look forward to users testing a variety of cases, so that we can continue to improve the feature across accents and noisy environments." Google says Gemini will end the call "politely" if the business cannot help.

Part of a wider push

Call for Me extends Google's line of smart calling tools on Pixel and Android. The Phone app already screens incoming calls and blocks robocalls and telemarketers. Hold for Me watches for the end of hold music, Direct My Call shows automated menu options before they are read aloud, and Scam Detection flags suspicious conversations in real time.

Assistants that handle calls are more accepted than in the Duplex era, and call screening is now routine on Pixel, Samsung and iPhone devices. Businesses are testing the other side: California pizza chain Pizza My Heart lets customers text its Jimmy the Surfer chatbot to order. A future in which a phone bot calls a restaurant and the restaurant's own AI answers no longer looks distant.