Imagine starting your day with a concise, personalized audio briefing tailored to your interests. This is the premise of Google’s latest Search Labs experiment, “Daily Listen.” This innovative feature leverages the power of AI to curate a short, informative audio summary of the topics and stories you follow, offering a fresh way to stay updated.

Daily Listen isn’t just another podcast app. It’s deeply integrated with Google’s understanding of your interests, gleaned from your activity across Discover and Search. By analyzing your searches, browsing history, and interactions with news articles, Daily Listen crafts a unique listening experience, delivering a personalized overview in approximately five minutes.

This personalized audio experience is seamlessly integrated into the Google app on both Android and iOS. You’ll find it within the “Space” carousel, conveniently located beneath the search bar. The Daily Listen card, clearly marked with the date and the label “Made for you,” serves as your gateway to this personalized audio feed. Tapping the card opens a full-screen player, ready to deliver your daily briefing.

Emblazoned with the Gemini sparkle, a visual cue indicating the use of Google’s advanced AI model, Daily Listen presents a text transcript in the space typically reserved for cover art. This feature not only enhances accessibility but also allows users to quickly scan the key points of each story. Recognizing that generative AI is still evolving, Google encourages user feedback through a simple thumbs up/down system, enabling continuous improvement of the feature’s accuracy and relevance.

The player interface is designed for intuitive navigation. A scrubber with clearly defined sections allows you to jump between stories, while standard controls like play/pause, 10-second rewind, next story, playback speed adjustment, and a mute option provide complete control over your listening experience. If you prefer to silently review the content, the transcript is readily available.

At the bottom of the screen, a scrollable list of “Related stories” provides further context and depth for each section of the audio summary. A “Search for more” option allows you to dive deeper into specific topics, and the familiar thumbs up/down feedback mechanism allows you to further refine the system’s understanding of your interests. As you browse these related stories, a minimized player remains docked at the top of the screen, ensuring easy access to the audio feed.

This exciting experiment is currently available to Android and iOS users in the United States. To activate Daily Listen, simply navigate to Search Labs within the Google app. After enabling the feature, it takes approximately a day for your first personalized episode to appear. This isn’t Google’s first foray into experimental features within Search Labs. Previously, they’ve used this platform to test features like Notes and the ability to connect with a live representative.

Beyond the Daily Listen experiment, Google is also expanding the capabilities of its Home presence sensing feature. This feature, which helps determine Home & Away status and triggers automated routines, is now being tested to integrate with “smart media devices.” This means that devices like smart speakers, displays, TVs (including those using Google streaming devices), game consoles, and streaming sticks and boxes can now contribute to presence sensing by detecting media playback or power status.

This integration provides a more comprehensive understanding of activity within the home. For example, if the TV is turned on, the system can infer that someone is likely present, even if other sensors haven’t detected movement. This enhanced presence sensing can further refine home automation routines, making them more accurate and responsive.

This experimental feature can be found within the Google Home app under Settings > Presence Sensing. A new “Media Devices (experimental)” section appears below the existing options for phones, speakers, and displays. Devices like Chromecast, Chromecast with Google TV, and Google TV Streamer are currently included in this test.

This media device integration is part of the Google Home Public Preview, which also includes other ongoing experiments like the rollout of Admin and Member access levels for Google Home, testing Gemini in Google Assistant on Nest devices, and exploring “Help me create” for custom automations. These developments signify Google’s ongoing commitment to enhancing the smart home experience and providing users with more personalized and intuitive tools.