I will be honest, Google's attempts to excite me about its AI features have generally not gone well. I only see them as forceful integrations. Not something that would change how I use my phone. However, one feature that I have been eyeing since the Google I/O in May 2026 is Rambler. It is a speech-to-text tool baked into Gboard that cleans up dictations of any 'umms' and 'uhhs'.
It’s like having a personal stenographer at your fingertips. I was sceptical at first, but after testing the Rambler feature on my Pixel 11 Pro Fold review unit, those doubts have vanished. I haven’t touched my keyboard since, and it's clear Google was underselling what it can do.
Rambler Is Essentially Gemini Inside Gboard
Rambler is one of the new Gemini Intelligence features introduced with the newly launched Pixel 11 series. Google pitches it as a tool that polishes text and removes unnecessary words or repeated dialogue, coupled with a soothing waveform animation when you tap the Mic icon on Gboard.
I started with a couple of lines of dialogue, going back on what I said and changing things mid-sentence. As expected, it only transcribed the part of the sentence I wanted to keep. That is neat, but Nothing's Essential Voice that I tested earlier this year, also allows me to do the same.
So I wanted to see what new Rambler brings to the table. I dictated a shopping list, and it quietly formatted everything into a bulleted list. I did not specifically ask it to and was surprised that it understood the context and did the formatting on its own.
Emoji requests worked the same way. Describing the kind of emoji I wanted got me accurate results. When I couldn't describe my emojis, I simply asked, "Insert 10 random emojis relevant to the text," and it produced exactly that. Not only was the transcription shocking me, but I was in awe of how much I was able to do with it.
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No Need to Repeat, Rambler Has Memory
When you are rambling for some time, mistakes are bound to happen that you wouldn't notice on your first go, and no amount of cleanup will fix them. Well, you don't need to repeat everything again, as I found out that Rambler remembers the previous voice prompt.
I made a simple request, "Change the time from 8 PM to 7 PM in the previous text", and instead of generating anything new, Rambler just made the minor edit in the original copy, which basically confirms that Rambler has some short-term memory.
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Can Also Answer Your Questions
This had me wondering: Is Rambler more capable than what Google initially promised? So, I started asking questions, and to make sure it answered them, I would include "Only insert the answer" at the end.
I enquired, "What is the capital of India? Only insert the answer". As soon as I pressed the tick mark, the text field showed "New Delhi". This could easily have been a fluke. Then I followed up with a barrage of random questions, like:
"What is the capital of the USA?"
"What is a differential equation in maths?"
"When did the first Pixel phone come out?"
"Who is the CEO of Tesla?"
"In which year did the first Avengers movie come out?"
As you can see in the image that I have attached below, it answered them all correctly without inserting the question itself. This is not a transcription. It's a model answering a question with information. It basically confirms my suspicion that Rambler is basically Gemini in disguise.
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3 Languages in One Message, and It Can Translate
Language is the toughest part for transcription models to crack, especially switching between them mid-conversation. So, I dictated a long message with several corrections and stutters while constantly switching between 2 languages. It turned out to be another piece of cake for Rambler. The transcript was word-for-word what I said.
To take things up a notch, I asked my office colleague, who is a Gujarati speaker, to start a sentence in his native tongue. Then switch to Hindi and finish it in English. All inside a single message. Rambler caught all 3 languages and produced a clean text in seconds.
My editor suggested trying translations. So, I wrote a wedding invitation in Hindi and asked Rambler to translate it into English with relevant emojis. And that also turned out as I requested.
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The Speed Is What Sells It
Rambler does not stream text in real time, and the transcription only appears after you tap on the checkmark. But it takes just a second and a half at most, even when it is a very long line of text. That is pretty fast, seeing as most of the processing is happening in the cloud.
Even Nothing's Essential Voice takes about 5 to 20 seconds of waiting, but Rambler is almost instant. The gap between finishing a thought and seeing clean text is short enough that I can let it slide. Not once did the thought "I could have typed this faster" cross my mind. I have yet to test it more and check whether this claim stands true in places with weak internet connections or not.
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Offline Mode Is a Different Feature Altogether
In "Offline Mode", Rambler simply hands the job back to the standard Pixel voice typing engine, which is available in all Google phones. That engine is good at cutting filler, but everything else gets typed out literally.
Saying something and then asking it to go back and cancel simply results in the cancel instruction landing in the text box too. So, the charm of Rambler only sits with its online mode, which is a bummer because I use it often. I might drain its usage limit fast and then have to live with the offline mode till the limit resets.
Will Rambler Replace My Keyboard?
Maybe. Typing has always felt like a chore to me, especially when I have to reply with long lines of text. And Rambler fixes that hugely, and I know for sure that I will be using it quite often throughout my Pixel 11 Pro Fold testing period, the review for which is coming out pretty soon.
It is far more powerful than what Google let on. But it is currently limited to the Pixel 11 series, which is a high bar of entry with a starting price tag of Rs 89,999 for a single AI feature. That is hard to ignore. But I hope Google is generous enough to bless other Android devices with the Rambler upgrade like they did with the Quick Share support for Apple devices.
Because if that turns out to be the case, I am pretty sure I won't be touching the keyboard as much.
