Shazam is one iPhone app I use all the time. I practically take it for granted at this point. Every time a catchy song starts playing, I instinctively open Shazam to figure out what it is so I can listen to it later. I don’t always follow through, but I can’t just sit there not knowing (or remembering) the name of the song.
Android has had a similar feature in place for several years, long before generative AI software like Gemini rolled along.
But fast-forward to June 2025, and you can now identify a song by simply humming the tune to Gemini. The AI will help you identify the song that’s stuck in your head, provided that you can do a decent job at humming, whistling, or singing it.
Spotted by 9to5Google, the new Gemini voice functionality is rolling out to the Android version of Gemini. Gemini could already identify songs if you played them to the AI, which is a feature that builds on existing Android capabilities. Google Assistant, which Gemini replaces, would also have done the job for you in previous years.
But Gemini now invites you to sing or hum a song to identify it. Ask the AI “What song is this?” and you’ll get a new interface where the AI lets you “play, sing, or hum a song…” that you need help with.
The feature shouldn’t be surprising considering that Google launched a “hum to search” feature in October 2020 to help you get rid of earworms. Here’s how Google described the functionality at the time:
Starting today, you can hum, whistle or sing a melody to Google to solve your earworm. On your mobile device, open the latest version of the Google app or find your Google Search widget, tap the mic icon and say “what’s this song?” or click the “Search a song” button. Then start humming for 10-15 seconds. On Google Assistant, it’s just as simple. Say “Hey Google, what’s this song?” and then hum the tune. This feature is currently available in English on iOS, and in more than 20 languages on Android. And we hope to expand this to more languages in the future.
It’s likely that Google fine-tuned that algorithm to bring it to Gemini. After all, music discovery is one of the simpler tasks for AI. I currently have a shortcut in Control Center for Shazam, but I’d use Gemini to hum a song if that was possible on the iPhone.
I’ll also remind you that Google added song recognition support to Circle to Search in 2024. Circle to Search is a handy AI feature on Android devices that lets you perform searches regarding whatever is displayed on your screen.
One more Gemini feature
Finally, I’ll point out another new Gemini functionality coming to your phone this week that might be useful for song recognition tasks in some scenarios.
Say you’re at a concert, event, or school play, and you can’t recognize a song, but you’re recording video. The Gemini app now lets you upload video clips in your prompts. It’s as simple as uploading files to the AI to have them analyzed.
You can upload a clip to Gemini and instruct the AI to tell you what’s happening in the clip. My guess is that you’ll also be able to ask about any music playing in the background. If the Gemini app can identify music from Circle to Search or users humming a tune, then video uploads should also work.
The video upload feature isn’t about music discovery, however. It should come in handy when trying to get answers from Gemini about specific topics where a video clip might help the AI better than a text prompt. The feature is rolling out to free and premium Gemini users on iPhone and Android.
