Google said it is using Gemini-based multilingual models that also support code switching. Code switching means users can move between languages midsentence — say, from English to Hindi — and Rambler will follow along without losing context. It’s a capability that reflects how many multilingual speakers actually communicate, and one that most Western dictation apps have been slow to support.

The company said that Gboard will clearly indicate to its users that the Rambler feature is in use. It doesn’t store any voice recordings and uses the audio only to transcribe what users speak. Google mentioned during the briefing that, as you can use the Rambler feature across all apps, it is like “reinventing the keyboard.”

On privacy, Ben Greenwood, director of Android Core Experiences, said Google uses a combination of on-device and cloud-based processing and has “invested significantly over many years” to ensure features are “safe and private” — a calculated message to users weighing Rambler against third-party dictation apps that may handle data differently.

In the past few years, a host of dictation apps — Wispr Flow, Willow, Superwhisper, Monologue, Handy, and Typeless — have cropped up. But until now, most of that activity has been on desktop and iOS, leaving Android relatively underserved. Google itself released AI Edge Eloquent, an offline-first dictation app powered by its on-device Gemma AI models, on iOS last month.