Project Astra здійснює пошук відео на YouTube
At the Google I/O 2025 conference, the company continues to demonstrate how far it has come in the development of artificial intelligence and smart assistants. For example, Google Meet has learned to translate your voice — and sound like you. Another of the most interesting areas is Project Astra, which is behind the camera and screen sharing features of Gemini Live. It was first introduced showed at last year’s conference.
But now Astra not only watches and listens, but also controls your smartphone like an independent assistant. You don’t even need to touch the screen to perform the necessary actions. Google is already testing this technology as a standalone Android application among a limited number of users.
Company showed new features of Project Astra on your smartphone Pixel 9 Pro. In the demonstration, the user repairs a bicycle and simultaneously has a live conversation with the assistant. It all starts with a simple request: to find an online PDF repair manual for a specific bike model. The AI finds the desired file on the Internet, opens it, and shows the necessary fragment, flipping through the pages on its own — you can see Astra «touching» the screen and scrolling the document to the desired location.
What follows — is even more interesting. After the user’s request, Astra opens YouTube, searches for the desired video, reviews the results, and launches the most useful video. Then the assistant goes to Gmail and finds information from the user’s correspondence. And now we see the scene: there are several buckets of spare parts in front of the person — Astra highlights the right one. This is somewhat similar to what Google had previously promised for Google Lens at previous conferences.
One of the most impressive features is the ability to make calls instead of the user. In the example, Astra calls a shop to find out if the part for a bicycle that the user is repairing is available. When the salesperson confirms that it is available, Astra asks the user if they really want to buy it, and only then confirms the order.
Another moment that demonstrates the «humanity» of the system: when Astra answers the user, someone nearby suddenly starts talking — and the AI pauses the answer on its own, not reacting to the extraneous noise. After the «continue» command, Astra resumes answering where it left off.
And when the user asks about a bike basket that can accommodate a dog, Astra recalls the dog’s name from previous dialogs. This is the level of a personal assistant with memory.
Google calls it Action Intelligence. According to the company, the new assistant combines several areas implemented with Gemini: content search, interface management, highlighting important things, call assistance, deep understanding of the conversation topic, contextual interaction in dialogues, personalized shopping, and natural voice communication.
Project Astra is not just an experiment. It is a testbed where Google is testing all future features for its main AI service Gemini Live. The goal is to turn the Gemini app into a true universal AI assistant that can perform everyday tasks, help with routines, suggest interesting and new things, and ultimately make our lives easier, more productive, and more enjoyable.
Source: 9to5google