DeepMind ships sign-language-to-text on Pixel 11, trained on 100,000 hours across 50+ sign languages
Google DeepMind's SL2T translates American Sign Language directly to English text in Gboard dictation and Live Transcribe on Pixel 11, trained on over 100,000 hours across more than 50 sign languages and scoring 70 BLEURT zero-shot on FLEURS-ASL. Skipping the gloss annotations that capped prior work removes an artificial vocabulary ceiling, so quality now scales with data — and an on-device MediaPipe Holistic pass sends only skeletal coordinates to the server, keeping raw video off the wire. It is the first time sign language translation ships inside a consumer product rather than a research demo, built alongside a standing Deaf advisory committee that co-authored a public report on the model's limits.
Source: deepmind.google ↗
signing in ASL is faster, more natural, and more delightful than typing in English
Why this matters
- → 70 million Deaf users gain native sign-language access to phones, messaging, and search for the first time
- → On-device pose tracking (no raw video sent) + direct translation (no glosses) removes prior quality ceiling
- → Built WITH Deaf advisory committee; impact report published; governance model moves beyond research demo