From keywords to full conversation: What Gemini can do on a TV

The existing Google Assistant worked on keyword recognition — you said "play Netflix" or "mute" and the TV performed a predefined action. Fast, reliable, but limited. You had to know exactly what you wanted.

Gemini is built on a large language model (LLM) — the same technology that powers ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude. It understands context, ambiguity, and can hold multi-turn conversations. When you tell your TV "I want something dark and slow-paced, with great acting, but nothing American," Gemini simultaneously evaluates genre, tone, and regional preference and suggests matching titles. Unlike Assistant, you don't need to know a specific title — you just describe the mood.

Gemini on Google TV brings four major innovations compared to the old Assistant:

• Conversational content discovery — instead of "find Inception," just say "something by Nolan with a complicated timeline." Follow-up queries ("what about something shorter?") are understood by Gemini in the context of the previous conversation.
• Voice-controlled picture and sound settings — saying "the room is too bright" automatically adjusts brightness and contrast without opening any menus. Similarly, "the picture looks washed out" or "it's too loud."
• Visual responses on the big screen — sports scores as live overviews, recipes as video tutorials, educational "deep dives" on technology, health, or economics in the form of narrated visual analyses.
• Smart home voice control — "dim the lights for a movie" has Gemini apply it to the right room thanks to contextual inference.

All Gemini responses are generated in Google's cloud, not directly on the TV. Every voice query travels to Google's servers, is processed by a variant of the Gemini Flash model, and the response — which may include text, video clips, live sports data, or narrated educational overviews — is rendered back on screen. Without an internet connection, the voice assistant does not work at all — there is no offline mode.

Which TVs will get Gemini — and when

The first European wave covers TCL's premium 2026 models: X11L (flagship with SQD-Mini LED technology), C8L, C7L, RM9L, and RM7L (models with RGB LED technology). The update is already rolling out in the UK and will reach other European markets, including the Czech Republic, during 2026.

After the premium wave, Gemini will expand to TCL's mid-range and entry-level 2026 models. Some of these models will first need an update to Android TV OS 14 — once TCL releases it, Gemini will install automatically.

Good news for owners of last year's models: select 2025 TCL TVs running the MediaTek Pentonic 700 chip (including the X11K, C9K, C8K, C7K, C6K, P8K series and the 2024 X955 model) will also receive Gemini. According to Forbes, the update also covers the Q8C, Q7C, MQLED80K, U85, and U75 models — although some of these must wait for an upgrade to Android U.

Google's hardware requirements are not excessive: Android TV OS 14 or higher and at least 2 GB of RAM. For owners of compatible TVs, no action is needed — the update arrives automatically if you have automatic updates enabled. You can check the status in Settings → Accounts & Profiles → Voice Assistant.

Hisense, Sony, and others? No timeline yet

While Gemini already runs on Hisense TVs (U7, U8, UX series) and select Sony Bravia models in North America, none of these manufacturers has announced a specific timeline for Europe yet. European models from these brands are expected to follow after completing Android 14 updates — but Google has not officially confirmed anything so far.

A separate complication is Sharp, which has moved part of its European TV lineup from Google TV to the Titan OS platform (also used by Philips). This would make the standard Gemini deployment on these models impossible.

Another limitation that will affect Czech viewers: Gemini on European Google TVs currently supports only English and French. Google promises to expand language support "later this year," meaning that German, Spanish, Italian, Polish — and most importantly Czech — will arrive no earlier than late 2026, more likely in 2027. For Czech households that don't speak English at a conversational level, Gemini thus remains more of a technological curiosity than a practical tool for now.

Your living room data is heading to China. Neither Gemini nor Google will change that

Now for the less pleasant part. While Gemini runs on Google's infrastructure, the TCL TV itself runs its own software that collects data regardless of whether you use Gemini or not. And this data travels to servers operated by TCL New Technology Co., Ltd., headquartered in Shenzhen, China.

This is not speculation. TCL states this in its European privacy policy: "Corporate entities of our group in China may have limited remote access to our data centers." In other words — data from European households may be accessible from China.

The key technology is ACR (Automated Content Recognition) — software built directly into the TV that captures screen content at intervals as short as 500 milliseconds. This includes not only streaming apps but also content from cable boxes, gaming consoles, security cameras, or any other device connected via HDMI.

The problem also has a legal dimension that goes beyond ordinary privacy protection. Under China's National Intelligence Law (2017, Article 7), all organizations and citizens have a duty to "support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence work." This obligation applies to TCL as a Chinese company regardless of where in the world it sells its products. Furthermore, China's Data Security Law (2021) regulates data generated by Chinese companies globally.

In December 2025, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against TCL (and four other TV manufacturers), alleging that the company used ACR technology to secretly monitor viewing habits and sold this data to advertisers without meaningful user consent. The lawsuit states that approximately 2.95 million people in Texas were affected and claims that TCL TVs contain "backdoors" for data exfiltration. TCL has not admitted guilt, and as of July 2026, the lawsuit remains unresolved — while similar lawsuits against Samsung and LG from the same filing have already been settled.

For European consumers, the American lawsuit has no direct legal force. However, the technology and legal framework it describes are not geographically limited — ACR operates on TCL TVs globally, and China's National Intelligence Law applies to TCL everywhere.

What you can do about it — and what you can't

A few steps can reduce exposure, but none eliminate it entirely:

• Turn off ACR: in Settings → Privacy or Data, disable options labeled "Viewing Information," "Content Recommendations," or "Interest-Based Ads." The names vary by model and country — and finding them is not always intuitive, which is itself a subject of the Texas lawsuit.
• Mute the microphone: some TCL remote controls have a hardware microphone mute button — use it when you don't need Gemini.
• Isolate the TV on a separate VLAN: in your router settings, place the TV in a separate network segment (IoT VLAN) to limit its communication with other devices in your home.

No combination of these steps, however, fully addresses the structural legal risk arising from China's National Intelligence Law. As long as TCL is a Chinese company subject to Chinese law, there is a legal duty to share data with Chinese state intelligence upon request — regardless of what the TV's settings say.

The battle for the living room: Google, Amazon, Samsung, and Apple

The European launch of Gemini fits into a broader race among tech giants to control the primary interface between the viewer and the TV. Amazon is pushing generative AI features into Fire TV devices through Alexa+, Samsung is deploying an enhanced Bixby on Tizen-powered TVs, and Apple is expected to deliver a significant AI update to Siri for Apple TV.

For Google, TV is strategically important also due to scale: the Google TV and Android TV OS platform powers over 300 million monthly active devices worldwide. The living room is one of the most frequent touchpoints where Google can deploy its AI — and one of the most valuable for personalized recommendations that generate additional data.

For European consumers considering what Gemini on their TCL TV actually means, two things hold true at once: Google's AI assistant is a genuine benefit, especially for discovering content without knowing specific titles. And the hardware risk from TCL is also real, independent of Gemini, and still unresolved. One does not cancel out the other.

Competition comparison: Who offers what on smart TVs

As can be seen, Czech language support remains a weak point for most AI assistants on TVs. While Google Assistant partially understands Czech, a full-fledged conversational AI in Czech on the TV screen is still music of the future.