Google DeepMind is turning sign language into a typing method. Its new SL2T (Sign Language to Text) model is baked into the Pixel 11's Gboard keyboard and Live Transcribe, letting you sign at your phone to search, write messages, punch out documents, or even fire a question at Gemini. At launch, it supports American Sign Language to English.
The model was trained on more than 100,000 hours of sign language footage spanning 50+ different sign languages, with roughly a quarter of that data coming from ASL. To keep things private, the phone first extracts pose coordinates from your hands, face, and body — then sends only those coordinates to the server for translation. Your raw video never gets uploaded.