Gemini On Google tV to gain ability to Change TV Settings, More by voice command
Manisha Priyadarshini reported for Digital Trends last week Google will be giving Gemini on Google TV a so-called “Deep Dives” feature which will “explain complex topics in a more accessible way” without interrupting what users are watching in the moment. Additionally, Gemini will be able to search through users’ Google Photos libraries, as well as generate content using Google’s popular Nano Banana tool.
“Google has announced a set of new Gemini features for Google TV at CES 2026, focused on making on-screen responses more useful and easier to understand from the couch. Google first introduced Gemini on Google TV last year as it moves toward replacing Google Assistant with Gemini on its devices,” Priyadarshini wrote as this year’s CES began on January 5. “Instead of short, text-heavy answers, Gemini on Google TV will lean into richer, more visual responses, including high-resolution images, relevant video context, and live sports information when it makes sense, helping users get clearer answers at a glance without pulling out their phone.”
Most notably for accessibility is Gemini also is gaining the ability to alter a television’s settings, hands-free. A person need only give the AI a comment like “the screen is too dim” or “the volume is too low” and Gemini will spring into action by adjusting those settings accordingly. This conversational approach, Priyadarshini said, is intended to “make everyday fixes quicker and less frustrating.” It strikes me as a huge win for accessibility as well, insofar as people with cognitive and/or visual conditions (or some combination thereof) plausibly may have a difficult time sifting through Google TV’s Settings tree to, for example, increase the brightness of their TV. What’s more, they may find it overwhelming to choose the “correct” picture mode to suit their visual needs and tolerances. To wit, a Professional or Filmmaker Mode make technically provide a more accurate viewing experience, but brightness is dramatically lower as compensation. By contrast, asking Gemini to tweak brightness or whatnot not only reduces cognitive/motor/visual friction, it showcases AI’s profound potential to be a bonafide assistive technology in a similar vein to how Siri makes HomeKit accessible.
More broadly, Priyadarshini’s story leads me to believe Google is pushing Google TV to function at a similar level as Alexa on Amazon’s Fire TV Cube. The comparisons are strong: Alexa on the Cube can do similar tasks, including changing channels on services like YouTube TV and even changing HDMI inputs on one’s television—all of it hands-free. Again, this is the kinda stuff that makes AI assistants like Gemini shine because they can make life more accessible for people with disabilities. If you’re someone who’s a quadriplegic and thus has no use of their hands, voice control is the way you control your devices, TVs included. Relying on Gemini (or Alexa, for that matter) to change settings and the like not only practical, it also instills heightened feelings of agency and autonomy in the disabled person because they needn’t rely on someone else to handle these ostensibly menial jobs for them. Because of this, the Fire TV Cube’s ability to control one’s entire home theater setup is especially impressive and, pointedly, a feature Google (and Apple!) ought to adopt on Google TV and tvOS.
As I always say, convenience and accessibility might be the closest cousins—most able-bodied people oftentimes conflate the two—but they are not one and the same.
