Google just dropped an AI dictation app for iPhone

It seems like software developers are launching new AI-powered dictation apps every other day now. However, this latest one is a bit different. Why? Because unlike the other ones created by startups or solo indie hackers, this one is brought you by a Big Tech behemoth.

On Monday, Google quietly launched its own AI dictation app for iOS devices. The app is called Google AI Edge Eloquent, and it's currently available to download for free on Apple's App Store.

Google's AI dictation app can work completely offline, as the app downloads Google's local Gemma-based speech recognition models directly to the user's iPhone. As everything is local, Google AI Edge Eloquent provides unlimited, and most notably, completely subscription-free use.

Users also have the option to turn cloud mode on if they are interested in using Gemini's AI capabilities. Cloud-based model usage is free, at least for now, as well.

Once Google AI Edge Eloquent is downloaded, users simply need to open the app, hit record, and start talking. Google AI Edge Eloquent will provide the speech-to-text transcription. Thanks to its AI capabilities, the app is able to clean up the text output and remove filler words like "ums" and "uhs" and any corrections made during the voice recording.

When the transcription is complete, users can ask for AI-powered summaries or rewrites by choosing the Polish, Key points, Formal, and Short options provided under the transcription. 

The app has a history tab that saves all previous transcriptions. Users can search within all of their transcriptions and also view stats for each session, such as words-per-minute or number of words spoken.

Users can also create their own personal dictionary, familiarizing the app with unique words and names so it can accurately transcribe them.

According to Google's description for the app, an integrated iOS keyboard is coming soon.

The official site for Google AI Edge Eloquent is hosted on Google's google.dev domain name, suggesting that this app is very much a work-in-progress.

It's also interesting that there doesn't currently appear to be an Android version of the app, although Google says on its website that it's "evaluating other platforms," including a desktop version.

Google releasing an AI dictation app at all is fairly notable as it's a fairly simple AI use case when compared to what else Google is doing in the space. However, perhaps the growing trend and market for AI dictation apps was just too much for Google to pass on.

That, or the app could prove to be a valuable source of training data in the future.