Putting sign language AI into users’ hands

August 12, 2026 Models

Google DeepMind Sign Language Team

Introducing sign-language-to-text (SL2T), our breakthrough model powering new sign language features for Deaf and hard of hearing users.

AI's ability to process spoken languages has advanced rapidly over recent decades, enabling automatic translation, dictation, and conversational interfaces that feel effortless to hearing users. Yet this technological revolution has not reached the world’s more than 200 sign languages — and the estimated 70 million Deaf and hard of hearing people who use them.

Today, we’re introducing a massively multilingual sign-language-to-text (SL2T) translation model that marks a breakthrough in quality and generality. With it, we are bringing sign language AI out of the lab and into consumer products for the first time: SL2T powers sign-to-text dictation in Gboard and Live Transcribe on Pixel 11, starting with American Sign Language (ASL) to English. More devices are coming soon, and additional languages will follow.

Similarly to how hearing users can use dictation to speak instead of typing, this feature enables Deaf users to sign to their phone anywhere they’d normally type. You can sign to search the web, draft messages or documents, and ask Gemini to solve queries or execute tasks. In Live Transcribe, you can sign responses in conversations instead of having to type back and forth. According to our testers, signing in ASL is faster, more natural, and more delightful than typing in English.

Why sign languages matter

Given this background, it is easy to understand why some early attempts at sign language technology, like sign language gloves, were fundamentally limited: sign languages aren't simply “English on the hands.” They require complex visual perception of fine-grained whole-body movements and full-fledged language translation. SL2T is designed to deliver both.