Joe Maring / Android Authority
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TL;DR
- We’ve spotted Google working on a Gemini-powered “Call for me” feature, also codenamed “Hedwig.”
- The feature appears to allow Google’s Phone app to use Gemini to autonomously call customer support, potentially handling automated voice trees, and hold your place on the line. Users will likely be able to monitor live audio, view real-time transcripts, or take over the call whenever they choose.
- The feature isn’t earmarked as a Pixel-exclusive just yet, but Google continues to gatekeep a lot of handy calling-related features to Pixels, and this could follow the same trend.
Google Pixel phones come with features like Hold for Me and Direct My Call that rank among the best Pixel features, taking a lot of the friction out of phone calls. We’ve now spotted Google working on a new Gemini-powered feature called “Call for me” that could potentially autonomously dial and navigate customer support hotlines on your behalf, further helping make devices like the Pixel 11 series some of the best phones for actual calls.
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In the Phone by Google app v239.0.980790129 beta, we’ve spotted several strings referencing an in-development feature codenamed “Hedwig.” Fittingly named after Harry Potter’s snowy owl known for reliably delivering mail, the feature could seemingly assign Gemini to handle the tedious chore of calling customer care, listening to automated voice trees, and keeping you off the line until it is actually necessary.
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call for me
Call for me
Customer support These strings will appear when initiating the call or showing your number:
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Back to Gemini app
Calling
Your number The “Back to Gemini app” makes it clear that Hedwig/Call for me will need Gemini to function.
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Automating the call
Take over
Cancel
Hang up When Gemini is on the call, users can take over or hang up as needed. If you receive another call while Gemini is handling your call, you will get a warning that answering the new call will end Gemini’s current call.
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Gemini is making a call for you
Follow along
Answering this call will end current call We’ve also spotted strings that suggest users will be able to choose how they monitor the call audio, either through normal speaker output, a wired headset, or keep it muted entirely via a “No audio” toggle. If you prefer text, you will also be able to get a transcript of the call to copy or share.
When the call ends, Gemini will let you know why: whether Gemini ended it, if the recipient hung up, or if the call ended due to poor network connectivity.
Google also has the following strings as part of its consent and telemetry notice:
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"This will send info about the call to Google, including system logs and the full transcript. Your phone number and device ID are not sent to Google, and all other information is anonymized. Your submission may be reviewed by human reviewers and may be used to train AI models. Data will be deleted from Google servers after 2 years" " Google hasn’t announced any Call for me feature yet. The feature appears to be in early stages of development, so we couldn’t get it working just yet.
The code also doesn’t explicitly mark this as a Pixel feature just yet, but we’ve seen Google gatekeep some of its smartest call-related features, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if this turned out to be Pixel-exclusive if and when it launches. We’ll keep you updated when we learn more.
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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