Gemini now helps you breeze through long Google Docs without reading them

Google Docs is getting new Gemini smarts that’ll make wading through lengthy documents much less painful. First spotted by Android Authority in September last year, Google is finally starting to roll out Audio Summaries to Docs, letting you hear a brief overview of your document instead of reading or listening to the entire thing.

Audio Summaries in docs could be extremely useful if you simply want to get up to speed with a document in a hurry. That said, the feature is not rolling out to everyone just yet and will be available only to users on the following plans:

• Business Standard and Plus
• Enterprise Standard and Plus
• Google AI Ultra for Business add-on
• Google AI Pro for Education add-on
• Google AI Pro and Ultra

If the feature is available to you, you can find it in the Tools menu in Google Docs. It would’ve been more convenient if Google had added a dedicated button in the top-left corner or placed it directly in the Gemini sidebar, but for now, you’ll need to dig into the Tools menu to access it. Thankfully, the feature, called “Audio,” is marked with a “New” label, making it easier to spot.

Clicking on “Listen to document summary” will start the audio summary. You can then click the three-dot menu to select different voices, such as Narrator, Educator, Teacher, and more. You can also adjust the playback speeds to suit your preferences.

If you simply want to listen to the document as is and not get an AI-generated summary, you can choose the “Listen to this tab” option instead from the Audio menu in Tools.

Google says the new Audio Summaries feature is rolling out gradually, so you might have to wait a couple of weeks before you start seeing it in Google Docs.