At I/O 2024, Google announced a slew of generative AI-powered features across all its major products. In fact, the company made a little joke at the end of the keynote by tallying how many times someone on stage said the term “AI” (it was over 120 times). However, as is Google’s wont, not many of the features the company launched that day are actually available for the public to use yet. Today, though, Android Authority got an early look at a Gemini feature launched at I/O called “Ask This Page.”
As its name suggests, Ask This Page allows you to glean specific information from a webpage by first having Gemini “read” it. Think of it like an interactive personal assistant. It does the heavy lifting for you by reading the whole webpage, and then you can simply ask it for the specific information you’re looking for, thus saving you a ton of time.
This is very similar to two other “Ask This…” features Google launched at I/O: “Ask This PDF” and “Ask This Video.” We already had the opportunity to test out Ask This PDF at I/O on a loaner Pixel, and it worked really well (check the video embedded above for that experience). However, that test was in a very controlled environment on a device that wasn’t ours, and it had only one test PDF. With our early access to Ask This Page, though, we had a lot more time to push the system to see if it has any cracks — and sure enough, it does.
Before we dive in, let me be upfront and say this is all based on an early look at this feature. It is possible Google could make significant changes before it rolls out to the general public. In other words, take everything here with a grain of salt.
Gemini’s Ask This Page: How it works
To activate Ask This Page, you simply pull up the Gemini overlay while looking at a webpage on your Android phone by holding down the power button. Since Gemini is now context-aware — a topic Google spent a significant amount of time discussing at I/O 2024 — it will know that you’ve pulled it up over a webpage. This will trigger the Ask This Page icon you see in the image above.
Tapping that prompts Gemini to scan the page. This can take a little time, the amount of which will depend on how long/complex the page is. Once it’s ready, it will give you a text box prompt saying, “Get help with what’s on this page.”
Once you see that prompt, you can ask questions about the page in natural language. Check out some screenshots below to see how this worked on an Android Authority article about a new Microsoft OneNote feature leak.
Ask This Page button visible
Ready for a prompt
Answer to “Is the feature released?”
In this example, we pulled up the Gemini overlay over the article, scanned the page, and then asked whether or not the feature described in the article is actually released. You can see Gemini’s answer in the third screenshot: “According to the article, the reminder feature is currently under development and not yet released.” This is accurate, so we have a great test run for Ask This Page!
However, this was a very simple test. Let’s find out what happens when we push the limits.
Ask This Page is siloed to one page…but only sometimes
… (continues)