Google’s Gemini can now make phone calls for users on Pixel phones through a new “Call for Me” experiment exclusive to the Pixel 11 series, WIRED reported on Thursday. The Google Gemini Pixel calls feature lets the assistant dial businesses, navigate menus, wait on hold, and converse with a live person while showing a live transcript.
Eligibility is deliberately narrow for the early preview: U.S. Pixel 11 owners who are 18 or older, hold a paid Gemini / Google AI subscription, run English as the device language, and are enrolled in the Phone by Google public beta, according to WIRED, The Verge, and Engadget.
What Google Gemini Pixel calls can handle
WIRED’s Julian Chokkattu described Call for Me as a Duplex successor powered by modern large language models. Users tell Gemini to call—optionally with an “@Call for me” prompt—and the chatbot may ask follow-ups before it dials. Google’s examples include checking whether a hardware store stocks a tool, booking or moving a haircut, and reserving patio seating.
The Verge noted that Gemini introduces itself as an AI calling on the user’s behalf, can work through automated phone trees, and stays on hold until a human answers. Callers keep a live transcript on the Pixel and can seize the conversation at any moment.
Limits, disclosure, and emergency exclusions
Google told WIRED the tool is aimed at businesses, not emergency services. If a shop lacks a strong web presence, Gemini will try to find a number—or accept one the user supplies. Thurrott’s support-page readouts add that the assistant discloses it is a Google AI on a recorded line and uses the same voice as Gemini Live.
Call for Me sits beside existing Pixel calling aids—Hold for Me, Direct My Call, call screening, and scam detection—that already reshape how Android phones handle unknown callers and IVR menus.
Why Google is starting with Pixel 11 only
Engadget and Beebom both framed the rollout as a gradual early preview rather than a mass launch. Confining the test to Pixel 11, a U.S. SIM, and the Phone app beta lets Google collect messy real-world cases—accents, noisy shops, abrupt hang-ups—before opening the feature more widely.
A Google spokesperson told WIRED the company wants users to stress-test those edge cases so Gemini can improve polite hang-ups when a business cannot help and stay reliable in noisy environments.
What to watch as Call for Me expands
Reporters will watch whether Call for Me reaches older Pixels, Android partners, and unpaid Gemini users, and how often clerks hang up assuming spam. The Verge also flagged Meta’s parallel work on Muse-driven business calls as competitive context.
For now, Google Gemini Pixel calls are less about replacing every human conversation and more about outsourcing the tedious middle—stock checks, hold music, and appointment juggling—while keeping the user one tap away from taking over.
Boston-area Pixel owners who already rely on Hold for Me will recognize the same philosophy: let software burn the hold music and menu trees so humans only speak when the conversation matters. WIRED’s frame—that today’s acceptance of AI call screening makes Call for Me more socially viable than Duplex ever was—will be tested one hardware-store clerk at a time.
