Google has started testing a Gemini feature that places phone calls to local businesses on a user's behalf, working through automated menus, waiting on hold and talking to whoever eventually answers. The experiment, called Call for Me, began rolling out on September 24.
Key takeaways
- Call for Me dials from the user's own phone number rather than a Google line, and the call is placed directly from the handset.
- Gemini introduces itself as an AI, navigates phone trees and waits on hold while the user follows a live transcript and can take over the conversation at any point.
- The early preview is limited to paid Gemini subscribers on Pixel 11 in the US who are enrolled in the Phone by Google public beta.
Google frames the use cases as the errands people put off: asking a store whether an item is in stock, booking or moving a restaurant reservation, rescheduling an appointment, or asking a shop to hold something. According to TechCrunch, the update also lets Gemini share personal details the user has approved, which Google says widens the set of actions it can complete on a call.
What is new here is the phone number
Earlier Google calling features kept the assistant at arm's length. Ask for Me, shipped last year, could ring businesses to ask about pricing and services, and The Verge notes that the earlier version gave users no way to step into the call. Pixel has also carried Hold for Me, Talk to a Live Rep and Direct My Call, each automating one slice of the ordeal โ the hold music, the queue, the menu tree.
Call for Me collapses those into a single delegated conversation, and it does so from the user's own line. That detail is doing more work than it appears. A business that screens unknown numbers sees a familiar local caller, a callback lands where the user expects it, and the person who picks up is speaking to software that is, on the network's terms, indistinguishable from the account holder.
It also moves the accountability. When an agent negotiates from a company-owned number, the call belongs to the company. When it dials from yours, the booking, the cancellation and anything it agrees to are attached to you.
Why Google is moving this slowly
The company said it is starting at small scale because real-world conversations are nuanced and it wants time to get the feature right before a wider release. That caution reads as earned. Google has been demonstrating machine-placed calls since it showed Google Assistant booking a salon appointment on stage at its I/O conference years ago, complete with synthetic hesitations, and the distance between that demo and a shipped product has been long.
The pieces have been arriving separately, including voice models built to start speaking before they finish reasoning โ the kind of latency budget a live conversation demands. The takeover control is the tell that the rest is not solved. A live transcript with a seize button is an admission that the agent will sometimes misread the room, and that the cheapest fix is a human already listening.
Who can use it, and what it will not do
Availability is narrow. Google is offering Call for Me as an early preview to Gemini paid subscribers on Pixel 11 in the US enrolled in the Phone by Google public beta. Google's support documentation for calling in the Gemini app also spells out hard limits: the Phone app is not available in Gemini on the web or in Google Messages, and Google tells users not to route emergency calls through it.
Rivals are converging on the same errand. TechCrunch notes that Meta's Muse and Instinct agents can also place calls, and The Verge reported that some of those calls might be made by a human behind the scenes. That contrast is the one worth watching: whether an agent is genuinely doing the talking, and whether the business on the other end is told either way.
FAQ
Does Gemini tell the business it is an AI?
Yes. Google says Gemini introduces itself when the call connects. The user also watches a live transcript of the conversation as it happens and can take over at any moment.
What number does the call come from?
The user's own. Google says Call for Me dials directly from the handset using the account holder's personal number, rather than routing the call through a Google line.
Do I have to pay for it?
Yes, for now. The early preview is limited to Gemini paid subscribers in the US on a Pixel 11 who have joined the Phone by Google public beta, and Google has described it as an experiment rather than a finished feature.
