Google recently announced a major upgrade to its Live Captions feature on Android, adding a new AI-powered enhancement called Expressive Captions. This upgrade rolled out with Android 14 and 15 in the U.S., aims to make captions more immersive and informative by highlighting emotional and environmental cues. With this update, the captions will reflect the tone, volume, and intensity of speech—displaying text in all caps to convey excitement, loudness, or anger, for example. Additionally, it will capture human sounds like sighs, grunts, and gasps, as well as background noises such as applause and cheers.

Live Captions, originally introduced as an accessibility tool to help those who are deaf or hard of hearing, have become increasingly popular for a variety of users. Whether in noisy environments or when watching content in a foreign language, many people rely on captions. Now, thanks to AI, the updated Live Captions will deliver a richer, more nuanced experience that helps users better understand what’s happening, not just in terms of words but in terms of emotion and sound.

The new feature is available on Android devices, and because it’s integrated into the operating system, it works across all apps, from streaming services to social media posts and even Google Photos. Importantly, the AI processing for these expressive captions happens directly on the device, meaning users can access this functionality even when offline or in airplane mode.

This evolution of Live Captions promises to not only improve accessibility but also enhance the viewing experience, making it more engaging for all users.