back to article OK, Google: Are you killing Assistant and replacing it with Gemini?

Google has decided to silence its voice Assistant and replace it with the Gemini AI service. Assistant debuted in 2016 and offered what Google called a “conversational interface” that could “enjoy entertainment, manage everyday tasks, and get answers from Google”. Receiving assistance from the Assistant required users to …

  1. ComicalEngineer Bronze badge

    "Marquardt also promised “a new experience, powered by Gemini, to home devices like speakers, displays and TVs” with details to come “in the next few months.” "

    I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that until you've paid your subscription...

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Doubleplus good! Big Brother loves you.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nooooo.

    On one hand I'll miss being able to easily turn the lights on and off, which is one of the few things the speakers can do now. On the other I'm kind of intrigued to see how it can get worse.

    1. Mike007 Silver badge

      Re: Nooooo.

      When Gemini first came out I switched over to it and found it kept doing the chatbot thing of "answering me" instead of triggering the commands. I couldn't turn off my lights, so I turned off Gemini.

      Unfortunately I haven't been able to test if they have resolved this issue, as Gemini does not work for me any more. If I set my phone's assistant to Gemini then it ignores me! I set it to flash the screen when activated, and when I say the activation phrase it flashes the screen and the microphone comes on for exactly 2 seconds - but that is all that happens!

      This is a shame, because elsewhere I have found Gemini to be the best performing model. I have put Gemini on my vscode both at work (with permission) and my personal system. It gives useful suggestions more often than copilot and is actually worth replacing the default autocomplete complete with. Additionally I have been testing putting the Gemini multimodal API inside applications and it is impressive when properly integrated in to something.

      1. sev.monster Silver badge

        Re: Nooooo.

        I'll not comment on your own use of AI because, that's like, your opinion, man.

        But please leave your "testing putting the Gemini multimodal API inside applications" in the testing phase only, to spare the rest of us that don't want AI shoved into everything for a multitude of reasons. Thanks.

        1. ABugNamedJune

          Re: Nooooo.

          I'm so tired of the enshittification of technology that's being exponentially sped up through the introduction of AI into everything. It's the reason I've switched to LineageOS, have a dumb tv, and exclusively run Linux. I don't want to wake up one morning to a critical application I need to work having its entire interface replaced with a text prompt that will attempt to do what you want for you (and do it badly).

          I envision a near future where our security vendor implements AI into their systems and when provisioning a badge during onboarding it invents a non-existent facility, gives this new user admin rights, and changes the lock state of every door to unlocked except for the fifteen seconds after a user scans their badge.

        2. JimboSmith

          Re: Nooooo.

          But please leave your "testing putting the Gemini multimodal API inside applications" in the testing phase only, to spare the rest of us that don't want AI shoved into everything for a multitude of reasons. Thanks.

          I have a form of neurodversity where I have trouble with things popping up when I’m typing. I therefore have a very great problem with Outlook etc. suggesting words after the one I’m typing at that point. I only use outlook at work and the AI on windows attempts to guess what I’m going to type next and puts it up on the screen. That gives me issues and if I shut the AI down in Task Manager when I start typing it comes back. I have to use a workaround to avoid this, one of which is to use Notepad to compose emails and then copy and paste it into the reply. I can’t delete or rename the exe because I don’t have admin privileges.to let me do that.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Nooooo.

            Sorry but they're putting copilot in notepad too. Vim has a perfectly usable Windows installer, though

            1. JimboSmith

              Re: Nooooo.

              I have another one but I’m not airing that one just in case someone from Microsoft is reading.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Subs mean an off switch

    If the subs mean it is easier to control the off switch for this then that is a bonus. Trying to setup a new phone without triggering the dumb assistant thing is frustrating.

    1. Roj Blake Silver badge

      Re: Subs mean an off switch

      And that's why they won't do it. Given a choice between losing the data of millions of users and giving away the means of collecting that data for free, they'll choose the latter every time.

      1. sev.monster Silver badge

        Re: Subs mean an off switch

        Considering the massive computing (power/cooling) cost that Gemini must incur, I don't know about that.

    2. MrAptronym

      Re: Subs mean an off switch

      I am just worried one of two things will happen:

      1. They will give frequent and annoying pop-ups whenever you accidentally do whatever common gesture they map Gemini to, and tapping the wrong spot will subscribe you. (My phone already asks me to activate Gemini every time I pull from one corner of the screen).

      2. Tie important non-LLM functions to the subscription as well, so that your life gets harder if you don't pay. They will act like this is an upside somehow.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Subs mean an off switch

        Tie functions together? Ridiculous, Google would never do that! Would they?

        Now, wtf does this mean? "You must enable location to use bluetooth"!

  4. Mark #255

    In-car use?

    Android Auto only accepts voice input while the vehicle is moving. Requiring a subscription for that might (one hopes) raise eyebrows at consumer rights regulators...

    1. PCScreenOnly

      Re: In-car use?

      If use Android Auto, it is because I want Waze over the car's sat nav and I am pressing the cars interface and not talking to the damn thing.... partly as it cannot hear me over the music blasting out - and I want music more than some bloody AI shit

  5. prandeamus

    Heavy Metal Detector

    I now imagine the Heavy Metal app users shouting.

    OK GOOGLE! I SAID OK ... GOOGLE ...

    You see, it's very loud ...

    I'll get me coat.

    1. sev.monster Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Heavy Metal Detector

      I'll get it for you.

    2. Rafael #872397
      Devil

      Re: Heavy Metal Detector

      From the article: In your correspondent’s experience it would often struggle to interpret the above request for info about metal gigs. -- what did it do? Ignored your request? Asked you to speak again more clearly? Suggested Barry Manilow concerts?

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

        Re: Heavy Metal Detector

        "Turn that bloody music down"

      2. Scotthva5

        Re: Heavy Metal Detector

        It plays "Hari-Kari for Barry" very, very loudly on repeat.

  6. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Hi Google!

    Hi Google!

    ...

    ...

    ...

    Hi Google!

    ...

    ...

    Haaaay Goooogle!

    ...

    ...

    Hi Google!!!

    ...

    *giving up*

    *turning on the radio*

    talkshow host says some rubbish

    *ping!*

    Google assistant: Here are Chinese restaurants in your area...

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Hi Google!

      Obligatory:

      Eleven!

      1. sev.monster Silver badge
        Gimp

        Re: Hi Google!

        Paying for Gemini in our Lord's year 2026 to have it tell ye to be calm.

  7. Locomotion69 Bronze badge

    a new experience, powered by Gemini, to home devices like speakers, displays and TVs

    Each time I run into communication babbling about "new experience" it results in the experience being worse than it was before.

    Did I mention that there is no way back to the old experience either ?

    1. sev.monster Silver badge

      And no alternative (official or otherwise) because you're shoved the new experience down your throat… And told to like it. You don't know what you want, heathen!

    2. vtcodger Silver badge

      It's Psychotic

      Bob: It's psychotic! They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity. Bob (Mr Incredible) Parr 2004

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      A new experience

      So that friend of mine who bought a Google TV a few years ago... I assume this means their Google Assistant will just die or are they going to do updates to old hardware?

      1. Patrician

        Re: A new experience

        Well, that is the question isn’t it; what about my Nvidia Shield TV, Google TV, Max hub etc? I use assistant on those much more that I do on my phone.

  8. Sam not the Viking Silver badge

    A subscription to enable AI?

    I would rather pay in order to not auto-invoke AI.

  9. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

    Never used Assistant, won't use Gemini AI any time soon

    1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      Re: Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

      As long as it can still be disabled I'm happy. I'm not optimistic, though.

  10. Dinanziame Silver badge

    The death of assistants

    In many ways, assistants were promised to be like artificial intelligence, in the sense they would understand what you meant and would react to your commands. That's when the movie Her came out. The problem is that there was hardly any intelligence behind, so each separate action had to be coded manually and maintained individually by an army of developers. They were already having trouble maintaining existing actions when ChatGPT came out, and that pretty much sealed their fate. I'm not entirely sure that AI stuff like Gemini can even replace them though. It's probably going to be a while before Gemini can be asked to turn on the lights or play a song — and I wouldn't be surprised if the connections to the light and sound systems and everything else still needs to be maintained by an army of developers.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: The death of assistants

      I actually quite liked Google's approach, though I never used it to things that it was easier to do manually and didn't require data harvesting. At the time, chatbots could only really worked in vertical domains, but quickly became a replacement for many tedious telephone menus "press one for technical support, two for accounts, etc.…" and this is where Google quietly made some money by selling them to industry.

      LLM means, in theory, that it's easier to provide more general support and, of course, the assistants provided a treasure trove of "conversations" on which to train them.

  11. masterofninja

    DeGoogling your phone is where you want to go. For all the shade Apple gets, their cautious approach to AI is good for users - as they actually consider it be useful AI, rather than AI for the sake of it.

    Saying that maybe this is a sign to move to everyone's roll your own AI?

    1. Stu J

      Apple's approach to AI?

      You mean, generating fake, inaccurate, and misleading summaries from third party applications, and falsely attributing those summaries to said third parties?

      Really "useful" and "cautious"...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      For all the shade Apple gets, their cautious approach to AI is good for users - as they actually consider it be useful AI, rather than AI for the sake of it.

      Saying that maybe this is a sign to move to everyone's roll your own AI?

      ——————-

      Oh you mean the same Apple who after the latest update re-enabled Apple Intelligence without informing me? I’ve learned to switch off the wifi when applying updates specifically for this reason. I’ve also learned to check these settings after every update specifically for this reason

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Subscriptions for AI services? Oh yes, Yes! YES <repeatedly smacks table>

    So, if I don't pay a subscription I don't get an AI ass-istant

    Heavenly

    I'll be not subscribing at the first (and every other) opportunity.

  13. xyz Silver badge

    Bloody Samsung...

    Knew they'd be in there someplace. Gf bought a "smart" Samsung tv the other week. She said setting it up was hell, the interface loaded with dark patterns from which there was no escape until you'd provided them with detailed personal details and promises that they could do anything they wanted with said details.

    Then after the data grab, I presume soon they'll be after cash for it to keep working.

    If anything asks if you have internet, just say no.

    1. PCScreenOnly

      Re: Bloody Samsung...

      disable Wifi, add whatever smart stick you trust

      One of our TV's the makers (Sony) used such a shit processor that many apps removed themselves, so disable wifi and I have a Roku in there - though only for Plex as we get the apps we use via an STB

      The other is a newish Fire TV - I would disable all that shit, but the kids use that room more and want its features so they are logged in with our son's account, otherwise I would disable it as well and be the same as the Sony - STB or a Roku for plex

      1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

        Re: Bloody Samsung...

        That's the problem with all "smart" TVs - a few years down the track support ends and then the apps either stop working or simply get deleted. It's a scam that's been going on for more than ten years now and I don't understand why consumers still give it any attention. Or are there a significant number of people who buy a new TV every three years?

        Given their past shenanigans, I wouldn't trust a Samsung TV to actually have obeyed an instruction to disable Wi-Fi, as opposed to silently searching for a nearby open access point and spying on me.

  14. Irongut Silver badge

    So will Google uninstall the impossible to uninstall Assistant from my devices? I've been trying to get rid of it for years but that is not allowed.

    I have no interest in any always listening spyware or the dead end that is "conversational interfaces."

  15. ovation1357
    Meh

    Let's see....

    I've always refused to have any of these devices in my house on two counts: Firstly major privacy concerns, secondly; they are really annoying. It's really hard to disable on a phone as well - no single on/off setting... There is one exception where I occasionally use Google Assistant and that is: in my car...

    My previous car had Android Auto which was exceedingly disappointing: The primary function I used it for was to play my kids' random song requests whilst driving.

    But it would often go like this:

    ME: 'Play Baby Shark'

    ASSISTANT: 'You need to set up Youtube Music'

    ME: 'Ask Spotify to play baby shark'

    ASSISTANT: 'Ok, asking Spotify to play Raining Blood by Slayer'

    I can't remember which songs we actually involved but this exact scenario arose more than once. At least the kids found it hilarious!

    Sometimes the default song would be the wrong one, so you can say 'Ask Spotify to search for the birdie song' but then you need to use the touch screen to chose which version you actually want.

    My latest car is built on Android Automotive (AAOS) which is similar but different to Android Auto (Seriously, who passed these product names through Marketing!?!?) and the assistant on that is a step worse.

    ME: 'Ask Spotify to play Baby Shark'

    ASSISTANT: 'Sorry, I didn't understand that'

    ME: 'Play baby shark'

    ASSISTANT: 'You need to set up YouTube Music...'

    ME: 'Open Spotify'

    ASSISTANT: 'Opening Spotify'

    But now the only way I can find to voice search in Spotify is to interact with the touch screen to press the search icon and then press the 'Speech to text' button. Given this is all on a touch screen it requires me to divert my attention from the road to achieve this :-(

    At one point one of my children really got into a French band called 'Kids United' and would ask me to play things like 'On Ecrit Sur Les Murs' - It's safe to say that Google Assistant cannot handle non-English words when set to English. I'd hazard a guess this means that you're a bit stuffed if you drive your car onto the continent unless you want to go the whole hog and talk to your device in the local language as well.

    So if Gemini can handle these tasks then it will be a step forward.

    However, the whole voice interface needs to get a whole load better to be genuinely useful - For starters I do not need it to repeat back to me everything I've asked it to do. It would also help if it were less disruptive - i.e. when a song is playing I can't queue up another one without it pausing the one being played. Ideally I'd be able to just say "Play agadoo next" and it would add it to the queue silently and without interrupting Baby Shark.

    Likewise I can now fairly reliably press the mic button on my steering wheel and say "navigate to Westward Ho!" but when there are multiple route options and I want to select the one which is only 5 mins slower but 20 miles shorter, if there's a way to do this verbally I haven't figured it out yet so it's back to interacting with the touch screen again (Side rant: I hate touchscreens and they are nothing short of dangerous in cars. Bring back physical buttons!).

    So let's see what Gemini brings. If I can control all the bells and whistles of my car by talking to it in plain English then in spite of my general AI/LLM scepticism I might be persuaded to use it,

  16. cyberdemon Silver badge
    Happy

    And we promise your 'Droid and smart home kit will get a 'new experience'

    What will that new experience be?

    The experience of being bashed to tiny pieces with a sledgehammer? Or being fried with thousands of volts up every GPIO pin in a microwave? Or a bit of 'experiential tourism' to the nearest landfill?

    If only Google hadn't locked down the bootloaders on their devilish devices, one could save some e-waste and give those poor devices the experience of running free software

    Oh well, off to Silicon Hell you go

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: And we promise your 'Droid and smart home kit will get a 'new experience'

      'Droid and smart home kit will get a 'new experience'

      The 'New' experience will be very similar to the 'Old' experience.

      It will not work ... BUT only after you expend a huge amount of time trying to get it to work !!!

      Personally, the 'Old' not working is just what I want and I will not try the 'New' not working if at all possible.

      I do not need any 'AI' crud ANYWHERE and look forward to the subscription so I can NOT pay it !!!

      :)

  17. SuLegato

    B-leading edge

    Premium phones are not offering benefits for the end-user, just a status symbol.

    Back to buying a Motorola 'cheap' phone, which stays about 2 years behind in android 'features'.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: B-leading edge

      This. I've always bought the budget phones as I only refresh every 3-5 years, so by that time, the chumps, er, early adopters purchase have paid for the rollout and now those features have filtered down to the budget phones.

      Like PCs, as if anyone remembers these days.

  18. wiggers

    I've never used Assistant and this doesn't encourage me to start!

  19. david1024

    There's one killer use Mark Pesce missed

    Countdown timers, some music, and the one he missed--> weather. We set so many timers so often we got the echo clock--and it is great.

    However, I'll never understand how these are supposed to make money. MS agreed and killed-off the cortana assistant. if they want a subscription-based assistant to do those 3 things... I'll just repurpose an old tablet and have it display the weather and hook into my lan's music collection. and spend $5 on ebay for 10 digital mini timers.

  20. Martin-73 Silver badge

    Provided they fix it

    I tried it the other week, it can't do half of what assistant can, as yet. 'show me my alarms'... assistant would list alarms. Gemini just said 'you can find that in your settings'.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Provided they fix it

      That's is some epic useless right there.

    2. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      Re: Provided they fix it

      That certainly sounds like a "new experience" to me

  21. andrewj

    Hey Gemini, sod off and die a horrible death.

  22. Eecahmap

    Try this with all network services off:

    "Hey Google, enable mobile data".

    Doesn't work with either assistant.

  23. Spanners
    Holmes

    What else would I want to do with is

    I use Alexa to play Scala Radio to my dog overnight.

    I use Alexa to set timers for cooking.

    I use Alexa to do lights but SWMBO doesn't like it.

    The only other use she gets is making animal noises when our daughter comes around.

    I may be unimaginative but I don't want much else

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What else would I want to do with is

      I taught my dog to 'Sit/Stay' etc so well done, Very clever dog ... I did not know Alexa was that good !!!

      BTW:

      What does your dog listen to during the day ???

      :)

  24. benderama

    I tried really hard to use my echoes in the way Amazon wanted. The audio never matched what I said, and the more we tried to use it the more it kept pushing sales onto us or other devious prompts to enmesh even further into the ecosystem.

    Our echo shows are amazing - when they’re showing the content we want. The problem is some stuffy product manager gets new toggles and landing screens added all the time. So while we see pics that we wanna see, we suddenly get landing screens for Amazon Prime or shopping foisted on us. I spend another twenty minutes finding the new toggles, the landing screens go away for a while, and then the process repeats.

    That’s why Echoes aren’t taking off. Poor response, continually having our settings overridden. Apple should be better in this respect.

  25. CorwinX Bronze badge

    I'm a highly skilled researcher

    I don't need the Second Coming of Clippy bothering me.

  26. JamPacked

    On Android, Google Assistant was the inferior replacement for Google Now. I can't wait for the inferior replacement for Google Assistant! Top notch company

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