What if, this Lunar New Year, you could congratulate your family with a song created especially for them? Google has just introduced a new experience within Gemini that turns a personal message into a 30-second musical track, complete with original lyrics, high-fidelity audio, and a personalized cover image.
The feature arrives to mark the Year of the Fire Horse, celebrated in 2026. Instead of sending a written greeting, you can create a short musical piece to honor your loved ones, share a family joke, or add a custom-made song to a gathering.
How Gemini’s musical experience works
The process is designed to be as simple as writing to Gemini. The app first asks for the recipient’s name and the main message you want to convey. You can then add details such as their hobbies, personality traits, preferences, or a family anecdote.
With that information in place, you choose a musical style. The available options include Rock, Ballad, Chinese Classical Music, R&B, Jazz, Mandopop-Trap, and Luk Thung, a popular genre from Southeast Asia. This lets you create anything from an upbeat song for your friends to a more respectful piece for an older family member.
The idea isn’t to produce a generic song, but to transform small personal details into a musical greeting with context and meaning.
Gemini uses the Lyria 3 model to generate the lyrics, compose the audio, and create a cover image featuring traditional red and gold motifs. The image also includes a dynamic horse, whose depiction can reflect the personality of the person receiving the message.
A greeting made to be shared
Once the track is ready, you can review it directly in the Gemini conversation. If you like the result, the app lets you export it with one tap to platforms such as WhatsApp, WeChat, KakaoTalk, and iMessage.
This could be especially useful for a reunion dinner, a family message sent from afar, or a greeting you want to make more memorable. Who hasn’t received an unexpected voice message that eventually became a story to tell?
Where it’s available
The experience appears through a temporary banner on Gemini’s home screen. Google says it is available to app users in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Brunei, and Mongolia until March 3, 2026, a date close to the end of the Lantern Festival celebrations.
If you don’t see the banner or you’re outside those markets, Google also allows you to start the process by copying a prompt directly into Gemini. The instruction asks the app to collect the name, message, personal details, musical genre, and language step by step before generating the song and cover image.
Keep in mind that the availability of these features may depend on your country, account, and app version. It’s also a good idea to review the result before sharing it, especially if it includes other people’s names, anecdotes, or personal information.
The feature points to an interesting direction for generative AI: not just answering questions or drafting text, but helping turn a tradition into a creative and personal experience. In this case, the value isn’t only in the music technology, but in using it to tell someone, “I was thinking of you.”
Original source
https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/gemini-app/lyria-3-year-of-the-fire-horse