Phone and Tablet Tips
Brilliant things to do on your device
ANDROID
Turn web pages into podcasts in Chrome
Google has updated the ‘Read aloud’ feature in the Android version of Chrome (www.snipca.com/56805) with an ‘AI playback’ option. Rather than read the current page in a robotic voice, it uses two more natural-sounding male and female voices to summarise and discuss the content – effectively turning the article into a podcast.
This is similar to the Audio Overviews feature in Google Gemini, and is powered by that AI tool. It provides a more immersive listening experience than standard ‘Read aloud’ and means you don’t have to hear every word on the page.
To try the new feature in Chrome for Android, tap the three-dot menu icon when viewing a web page and choose ‘Listen to this page’ ( 1 in our screenshot below left). You’ll see a ‘Generating AI playback’ message in a panel at the bottom of the screen, then the AI voices will start discussing the content.