Google Gemini Is Now Part of Kaun Banega Crorepati, Explained

India's biggest TV quiz show now has an AI co-host of sorts. Google and Sony Pictures Networks India have deepened Gemini's role in Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) Season 18, hosted by Amitabh Bachchan, adding a brand-new Gemini-powered lifeline, on-air trivia you can chase down on your phone, a daily quiz challenge, and a playable hot-seat-style quiz inside the Gemini app itself. Here's what's actually new, and how to try it yourself.

How Gemini shows up during the actual broadcast

During episodes, host Amitabh Bachchan puts trivia questions to Gemini on air, and viewers can scan an on-screen QR code to pull up the full answer -- and dig deeper into the topic -- inside the Gemini app on their own phone. It turns a one-way broadcast moment into something you can follow up on immediately, rather than just watching it pass by.

Sanket Suchak: the first new KBC lifeline in 11 years

The headline addition is Sanket Suchak ("hint indicator"), a lifeline that lets Amitabh ask Gemini for a smart hint to help a contestant stuck on the hot seat. According to show reviews, it's available to contestants from the very start of their run, alongside the classic Audience Poll lifeline, while other lifelines still have to be earned by climbing the cash ladder. Home viewers playing along get a version of the same Gemini-assisted hint. Reports describe this as the first season of any "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"-format show anywhere in the world to explicitly build a large language model into the format itself, rather than just using AI behind the scenes.

Sanket Sawaal: a daily question with a prize attached

Sanket Sawaal ("hint question") is a separate, daily feature where viewers answer a question with Gemini-assisted hints along the way. Top performers get a shot at experiencing KBC live from the studio -- turning the at-home version of the show into something with a real, tangible reward.

The KBC quiz you can actually play on Gemini

Separately from the TV broadcast, Google has also built a standalone experience directly into the Gemini app: type a prompt like "Start the @KBC quiz" and it launches a personalized, 16-question hot-seat-style challenge modeled on the show's format. If you get a question wrong, Gemini doesn't just mark it incorrect -- it explains the right answer, adds context, and lets you ask follow-up questions to actually understand the topic, turning the quiz into a small study session rather than just a scorecard. It's available to any Android or iOS user with the Gemini app installed, with no update or paid subscription required. This part of the rollout was first reported in late July and early August 2026 by multiple Indian media outlets; some coverage at the time flagged that the exact launch details weren't independently verifiable beyond Google and Sony's own announcements, so treat specific wording (like the exact prompt phrasing) as best-effort guidance rather than a guaranteed script.

Why Google is doing this

The partnership didn't start with quiz gimmicks -- it began on July 10, 2026, when Google India and Sony Pictures Networks India announced Gemini would help handle the flood of registration questions KBC gets every season, plus act as a study companion for hopeful contestants preparing for the hot seat. Google says Gemini has already fielded millions of registration-related queries from KBC aspirants this season. Layering interactive, on-air features on top of that turns a practical customer-support use case into a way to put Gemini directly in front of one of Indian television's largest audiences, alongside the site's earlier coverage of Google AI Mode launching in Hindi and NotebookLM's Hindi and Tamil audio overviews -- part of a broader pattern of Google meeting Indian users through language and formats they already use daily, TV included.

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