Google News now reads your headlines aloud, but there’s a catch

If you prefer listening to the news instead of reading it, Google is finally catering to you. The company is rolling out audio briefings in its Google News app, but you’ll only get them if your region settings are correct.

Google first teased this feature earlier in December, framing it as an experiment for users who prefer absorbing information by listening. Now, it’s rolling out to devices.

This isn’t just a basic text-to-speech feature; you get a dedicated interface designed for audio consumption. When you tap the “Listen” tab at the bottom, you’ll see an audio player that offers a “Google News Audio Briefing.”

The briefings come with clear attribution and direct links to the full articles. If a brief catches your ear, you can tap through to read the full article immediately.

The interface is simple but has plenty of features. You’ll find standard playback controls, like play and pause, plus skip-forward (30 seconds) and skip-backward (15 seconds) buttons. There’s also a button to change playback speed from 0.75x up to 2x, so you can listen faster if you want.

However, audio briefings aren’t available everywhere yet. At the moment, access depends on your settings. Users outside supported regions can enable the feature by switching their “Languages & regions of interest” to the United States (Tap your profile picture at the top-right corner and choose “News settings,” where you can find that option).

Google hasn’t announced when audio briefings will be available globally. For now, it’s a US-focused test that’s accessible with a bit of tweaking to the settings.

This update is part of Google’s effort to offer more flexible and helpful experiences. The company has already added summaries, AI-generated overviews, and conversational tools in Search and Gemini. Audio briefings feel like the News app’s version of that same idea.