Gemini Live’s voices don’t sound like they should - 9to5Google

As we get new models of Google’s AI, there appears to be a knock-on effect that is drastically changing the experience with Gemini Live and the assistant’s customizable voice options. You might want to point to the recent Gemini Live 3.1 Flash Live update as the catalyst for this, admittedly annoying change, but this appears to happen fairly often, with reports of various voices changing cadence, tone, and even flipping between the preset accent library week to week. One of the most obvious alterations is to the speech cadence when using the various options. In our testing, the “Capella” option, which mimics a female British accent, has changed or broken down significantly since its introduction, but other regional Gemini Live voice options exhibit similar issues. Over the past few months, many voice options have deteriorated, and the speech preview sounds almost nothing like the actual experience when interacting with Gemini Live. Speech patterns are much slower, the high-pitched voice is toned down, and at times it sounds Australian or dips back into other, more “standard” American accents when responding to queries or having a back-and-forth conversation.