Gemini is spooking Google Maps’ users by chiming in on chats uninvited

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It seems Google might have flipped a switch on Gemini without making much noise about it. A growing number of Android/Pixel users are reporting that Gemini on their phones has suddenly started chiming in and replying to ambient, everyday conversations completely out of nowhere, even when the standard hotword detection for voice assistant settings was supposedly turned off.

Reddit user Flat_Marsupial_4249 was spooked by Gemini on their Pixel 9a suddenly interjecting in a private conversation between them and their friend during a drive. What’s more, the comment was contextually relevant rather than a generic search result, indicating that the AI assistant had been listening all along, adding to the creepiness.

A Redditor noted in the comments that Google seems to have quietly opted users into hands-free assistant access, particularly within driving modes in Google Maps and Waze. Other users noted that they had explicitly kept this setting off, but it seems Google enabled it with a recent update.

You can check for hands-free assistant access within Google Maps by clicking on your profile picture in the top right-hand corner, navigating to Settings > Navigation > Gemini > Talk to Gemini hands-free , and disabling it. You can also click on the Manage Voice Match hyperlink on this page and then Turn off Voice Match on the next page.

I do find Gemini helpful when navigating, and I have voice match enabled for controlling my smart home, so I’ve kept these settings on. But it’s understandable why some users would want to keep these settings toggled off, and it wouldn’t be a good look for Google if it suddenly flipped this switch on users who didn’t want it.

We’ve reached out to Google to learn more about the situation, in case the company has made any changes to these features and made them opt-out instead of opt-in. We’ll keep you updated when we learn more.

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