Google Interview Warmup review: what it was and why Google shut it down

Is Google Interview Warmup gone?

Yes, Google Interview Warmup is gone: Google discontinued the tool (its own word was "retire"), and there is no working version to use. When we checked on September 18, 2026, its old addresses redirected to a Grow with Google article titled "How to prepare for an interview", dated December 11, 2025, or returned "page not found" errors. The first screenshot below shows where the old address lands today.

If a course, a career center or an old bookmark sent you here, the tool you are looking for no longer exists. This page covers what it was, when and how Google shut it down, and what it did well.

Where do Interview Warmup users go now?

There is no single successor. The closest replacements are a few free or low-cost tools, which our Google Interview Warmup alternatives page compares with prices and test results. Google's own tips article points to Gemini Live, covered below. Interviews by AI, which we reviewed separately, writes 3 free questions a month from a job posting you paste, and Mock Interview Pro scores typed answers free on its interview question pages.

If your interview is in the next day or two, do not spend tonight hunting for a copy of Warmup. Pick one of those tools, answer three likely questions (out loud if the tool allows it), and fix the weakest answer. If you use Gemini Live, tell it the role, ask for one question at a time, and ask it to follow up on your answers before giving feedback.

What was Google Interview Warmup?

Google Interview Warmup was a free, browser-based interview practice tool from Grow with Google, announced on June 2, 2022 on Google's Keyword blog. You picked a field, got a question, and answered it out loud. Machine learning transcribed your answer in real time, and afterward the tool showed insights: the job-related terms you used, the words you repeated most, and which talking points you covered, such as experience, skills and goals. Questions were written by industry experts for the Google Career Certificate fields (data analytics, digital marketing and e-commerce, IT support, project management and UX design) plus a general set. It cost nothing, with no paid tier.

Interview Warmup is often called an AI tool, and that is only partly right. It used machine learning to transcribe answers and spot patterns in them, but Google's FAQ said AI was not used to generate its questions, and it did not write feedback the way today's AI interview tools do. It suited first-time interviewees who wanted free, judgment-free spoken practice, and Google Career Certificate learners, whose fields had their own question sets.

When did Google shut down Interview Warmup, and why?

The main Interview Warmup page stopped working in December 2025, Google's retirement notice was online by April 2026, and the only reason Google gave was "spring cleaning". We found no published shutdown date or announcement post. Our evidence is the Wayback Machine, which saves dated copies of web pages, plus one user report. Here is the record, checked on September 18, 2026:

1. The grow.google landing page was last captured working on December 9, 2025. The first capture showing a redirect is December 16, 2025, and every capture since then is a redirect. The article it redirects to is dated December 11, 2025.
2. A copy of the tool on Google Skills was captured working on December 15, 2025. By April 10, 2026 it was redirecting. The older Google Cloud Skills Boost address returned a 404 on September 18, 2026.
3. On March 2, 2026, users on r/google were already asking why the tool had disappeared.
4. A capture of the Google Skills redirect's destination, dated April 23, 2026, shows Google's notice: "We're doing a little spring cleaning and have decided to retire Interview Warmup. If you have any questions, please contact support."
5. An information page with the tool's FAQ stayed online at grow.google/interview-warmup-archived and was captured on May 27, 2026. On September 18, 2026 that address redirected to the Grow with Google home page.

Several third-party pages about the shutdown, such as Skillora's and Final Round AI's, date it to April 2026. That date matches the notice, but the main page had already been redirecting for about four months by then. The exact day each copy stopped working is not public, and we will not guess it.

Did Google replace Interview Warmup with Gemini?

Not officially: the retirement notice names no replacement, but the article the old Interview Warmup address now opens recommends Gemini Live, the voice mode of Google's Gemini assistant. The article says "the Gemini mobile app offers Gemini Live, which you can use to simulate a real-time, conversational interview, providing instant, structured feedback on your responses." The second screenshot below shows that recommendation.

Gemini Live is a genuine free option, but it is a different kind of tool. Google's US subscriptions page, checked on September 18, 2026, lists Gemini Live in the free plan. It is a general voice assistant, so there is no interview mode, question bank or saved scorecard; you set up the interview yourself with a prompt, and the feedback is whatever you ask for. Google's help page says Gemini Live is not available in the Gemini web app, so it runs in the Android or iPhone app, and you need a Google account. A separate desktop feature, Go Live with Gemini in Chrome, exists but has its own setup requirements. We did not test Gemini Live for this page.

What was Interview Warmup good at, and where did it fall short?

Interview Warmup did one thing well: it got people to say their answers out loud, for free, without judgment. That mattered, because an answer you have only rehearsed in your head often comes out differently when you say it, and Warmup removed every barrier to trying: no price, no card, no grading. Google also said it did not save your audio or transcripts, and you could download your transcript at the end.

Its limits were built in. Google's FAQ said the insights "don't 'grade' your answer or tell you what part of your answer is right or wrong." You could see which words you leaned on, but not whether your story answered the question. It asked no follow-up questions, gave no feedback on video or body language, and could not use your resume. Its question sets were fixed to a handful of certificate fields plus general questions, so nothing was tailored to a specific job posting, company or interview round. For a first-time interviewee that was often enough. For someone with a hiring manager round on Thursday, it was a warmup, as the name promised, and not a rehearsal.

What did users say about Interview Warmup?

People valued it for being free and low pressure, and some were frustrated that it disappeared quietly. A career coach on LinkedIn described its value as "especially for career pivoters, first-time interviewers, and anyone who didn't have access to 'formal' mock interviews." Google's own page carried a testimonial from a certificate graduate who credited it with a confidence boost after 13 years of self-employment.

The limit mentioned most often is one Google's FAQ stated plainly: it never told you whether an answer was good. A Skillora write-up, from a company that sells a competing tool, described it as "a mirror with a transcript attached."

Is it worth looking for a copy of Interview Warmup?

No. No official copy is running, and the archived copies on the Wayback Machine are snapshots of pages, not a working tool. Your time is better spent on a live replacement, and our alternatives page and the best free interview practice cover the options. Our testing method explains how we checked each one.