The first Google TV powered by Gemini is now official and up for purchase, arriving in the form of TCL’s new QM9K series. In addition to being yet another high-end 4K set, it’s also the launch vehicle for Google’s newest AI assistant on the biggest screen in your home — a significant moment for Google TV and an indication of where living-room interfaces are going.
What Gemini Adds to the Big-Screen Experience
“With Gemini on Google TV, we wanted it to be less like a traditional voice assistant and more of an aware guide,” the company said in a blog post. Anticipate the ability to make natural-language queries beyond “play this” — say, “find tense thrillers from the ’90s and then show the ones with Keanu Reeves” — and on-screen results you can whittle down through conversation. It’s made to help you discover content, answer questions and control smart home devices without the need to hop in and out of different apps.
TCL’s version marries Gemini to a built-in presence sensor that will allow the TV to sense when somebody enters the room and take action — be it waking up the screen, recommending content tailored for you, or cycling through your morning routine. That’s the kind of ambient intelligence Google has been pitching as it extends Gemini across Android and the home ecosystem.
TCL QM9K: Display Tech Designed for Bright Rooms
What’s under the hood is a 4K QD‑Mini LED set with enough light coming out of it to perform serious screen damage, and granular backlight control. “Up to” 6,500 nits of peak brightness — an attention-grabbing number designed for HDR pop in brightly lit rooms — and 6,000 local dimming zones to quash blooming and approach OLED-like blacks. As a point of reference, the sort of high-end living-room TVs I’m talking about top off at a few dozen percent higher, 1,500–3,000 nits in real-world HDR scenes depending on panel type and window size — so TCL is definitely tuning for punchy highlights.
The panel is 144Hz capable which has become more important as high-frame-rate content and PC gaming become more popular. There is an anti-reflective coating onboard for cutting glare, and the combination of quantum dot with Mini LED tech is said to bring wide-color expression with fine light control. The hardware stack, in theory, should provide Gemini’s content recommendations with a premium canvas for you to cram anything you want into: sports broadcasts and HDR movies and original programming are where these kinds of specs tend to shine.
Pricing, Sizes, and Availability in the US
The QM9K line will be available in the US via big-box stores, including Best Buy, in four sizes: 65 inches for about $3,000, 75 inches at roughly $3,500, 85 inches around $4,000 and an extreme-size-equals-extreme-price wall-dominating 98-inch model just under $6,000. That pricing firmly plants the series in premium territory for Mini LED and undercuts many flagship OLEDs at equivalent sizes.
Of course, with any TV launch, street prices can move over time. Early adopters are being asked to pay for both the top-tier backlight system and, presumably, first dibs on Gemini on a TV — that’s what the price premium is here.
Upgrade Path for Existing TCL QM8K Owners
TCL, meanwhile, said that it would roll out Gemini to the prior-generation QM8K series via a software update. That set does not have the QM9K’s presence sensor, so it won’t work in quite the same way, but it should still give Gemini’s voice-driven discovery and assistant functionality to living rooms that already exist. There’s no specific rollout window just yet.
Why This Release Is Important for Google TV
Google has been rolling out Gemini across its various products — from Android to productivity apps — television is a logical destination next. TVs are ever more the hub for streaming, gaming and smart home devices. With Gemini embedded at the system level, Google TV can deliver quicker content discovery, smarter recommendations and cross-service search — without ugly hand-offs that irritate fans.
The shift also makes sense in the context of a broader industry reformation. Television manufacturers are leaning hard on AI branding — Samsung’s latest Neo QLED sets feature near evolution descriptions like “AI upscale” and “scene detection,” while recent LG processors also push AI-empowered picture tuning. Google’s approach is different: it’s a platform-level assistant that serves to integrate search, control and personalization. If it works as touted, it could cut the amount of time users spend hunting for something to watch — an issue of frustration that analyst firms like Nielsen have repeatedly highlighted for streaming households.
Bottom Line: Why TCL’s Gemini TV Launch Matters
The TCL QM9K is the first TV where Gemini isn’t an app — it’s an actual part of the living-room OS. With premium Mini LED lighting, a room sensor for smart home smarts and broad availability in the US, it’s a big deal for Google TV. More models and updates are on the way, but if you want your first peek at Gemini on a TV, this is what to look for.