TL;DR
- An Android Authority teardown has revealed that Gemini’s Deep Research feature could soon give you more control over your sources.
- The feature could let you specify whether to search the web, Gmail, Google Drive, or Chat.
- This differs from the current Deep Research feature, which only allows you to sift through individually uploaded files.
Gemini has offered a Deep Research feature since last year, enabling the chatbot to conduct a deep dive on your desired topics. Now, it looks like Google might give you more control over your sources when using this feature.
We conducted a teardown of the Google app for Android (version 16.44.59.sa.arm64) and enabled the ability to choose sources for Gemini Deep Research. Check out the screenshots below.
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The screenshots reveal a Sources button in the Deep Research section. Clicking this option lets you choose which Google sources to include in your Deep Research query, namely Search, Gmail, Drive, or Chat. This is a notable change from the current Deep Research feature on Gemini for Android, which only offers Camera, Gallery, Files, and Drive buttons.
We can confirm that Gemini sifts through your entire Google Drive account and Gmail inbox when you tick them as a source, although it’s currently unable to generate a research report for us. By contrast, tapping the Drive button in the current iteration of Deep Research results in users having to choose specific files. This new approach could be particularly helpful if you don’t want to look for a certain file or message, or if you need to sift through many files and messages. The ability to omit the web as a source is also pretty useful if you’re worried about the veracity of information.
We can also see a Files button that works like the current iteration of Deep Research, allowing you to upload specific files for analysis. However, it’s also possible to upload files while still choosing specific sources. So if you’d like Gemini to include a specific document as a source while also searching your Google Drive folder for other relevant files, this is possible.
In any event, this source functionality seems like a great addition to Gemini Deep Research. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if Google’s own NotebookLM service also gained the ability to sift through your entire email inbox or Google Drive account without needing to add individual files. Nevertheless, our fingers are crossed that Deep Research gains access to more Google sources (e.g. Google Photos) in the future.
⚠️ 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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