Gemini’s split-screen upgrade is here, and it's not just for tablets anymore

We discovered late last year that Gemini would eventually play nice with split-screen multitasking, but the assumption was always that you’d need a foldable or a tablet to really take advantage of running your AI assistant side-by-side with another app. Well, it looks like Google is changing that expectation.

A new Google app update is quietly letting Gemini interact with other apps in split-screen mode on regular smartphones, not just on foldables or tablets like we saw back in November 2025.

We’ve spotted this feature running on a Pixel 9, and it really improves the experience if you don’t like the usual Gemini overlay blocking your screen.

This capability appears to be tied to version 17.5.42.ve.arm64 of the Google app. While there are no flags to toggle, the functionality is live and surprisingly robust for a quiet rollout.

To use it, open Gemini in split-screen mode next to another app. Now, instead of just a blank chat window, you’ll see a new option on the Gemini home screen and in chats called “Share screen and app content.”

Tapping this triggers a glowing, colored animation followed by a “Sharing” text indicator. This is your cue that Gemini is now viewing the other half of your screen.

However, do note that Gemini cheats a little bit depending on what you are looking at. If you are running Google Chrome side-by-side, Gemini doesn’t actually scan the browser’s visual pixels. Instead, it grabs the URL of the tab you have open, similar to the “Ask this page” function you get with the overlay.

But if you switch to a different app, the behavior changes. For non-browser apps, Gemini actually captures a screenshot of the adjacent window to understand your query. Interestingly, it blacks out its own portion of the screen during this process to avoid visual confusion.

Before you try it, remember that Android’s split-screen feature can still be inconsistent. It works well on a Pixel 9 with Android 17 beta (and probably Android 16) and looks good on a OnePlus Pad 3 (as seen in the video above this article), but it’s not available everywhere yet.

We tried this on a OnePlus 13R, but the feature didn’t work because that phone doesn’t fully support Gemini split-screen yet. This matches the slow rollout of split-screen support that began in September 2025. If you have a Pixel, check your Google App version: you might already have the update.