Another one bites the dust: Google is finally killing Google Assistant next month
Google is retiring Assistant on phones, tablets and wearables on Sept. 4 as Gemini takes over as Android’s default AI helper.
Google has started sending out emails to anyone still on Google Assistant, telling them that starting September 4, users will no longer be able to use Google Assistant on their phones, tablets, and paired devices like Wear OS smartwatches, compatible earbuds, and Android Auto dashboards.
Only cars that come with Google built-in will be able to use Google Assistant past the September 4 cut-off date. Obviously the company is shilling Gemini as a replacement to Assistant for people who live in places where Gemini is available:
If your Android device meets the minimum system requirements and you are in a region where Gemini is available, Gemini will be the Google-provided assistant on your mobile device. When you invoke your assistant, for example, by saying “Hey Google” or long-pressing your power button, Gemini will appear instead of the previous Google Assistant.
Google Assistant was unveiled during the Google I/O developer conference in May 2016 and was initially rolled out in the long-discontinued Google Allo app (which functioned as a conversational messaging client) and Google Home. It wasn’t until October 2016 that Google brought the tool to the very first Pixels before eventually being rolled out to other Android devices, third-party smart speakers, smart displays, TVs, and even iOS devices in 2017.
ChatGPT really did catch Google off guard and was an existential threat to the Mountain View tech giant because it could do things like write complex code, generate essays, and answer conversational questions directly, unlike a traditional Google Search, and fewer people using Search means less ad revenue. Google responded a few months after ChatGPT launched with Bard, a name it eventually retired to settle for “Gemini.”
Gemini has since improved with new models like Gemini 3.5, Gemini Spark, which acts as a persistent assistant that is always on 24/7 and can manage background digital tasks, and Gemini Omni, a new multimodal model which, according to Google, is capable of mixing text, audio, images, and video to generate high-quality media and video outputs.