Goodbye Google Assistant? Gemini’s silent takeover may change how you talk to your phone forever

Google is reportedly sunsetting its signature voice assistant in favor of Gemini AI. Internal company documents and code widgets point to Gemini becoming the only path for users to interact with Google in the near future.

Toggle option to Single pathway

Google has allowed users to toggle back to the older Google Assistant if they wished to do so in the settings menu. However, recent code widgets uncovered by tech analysts have removed the revert option for the Assistant. The “Digital assistants from Google” toggle is now being removed from Gemini’s settings and the older Assistant app, which means that Gemini will become the only default path forward.

Generative-AI Assistant Functionality

Gemini is the first large-scale, multimodal generative-AI assistant: conversational with text, voice, images; that can reason over more complete prompts; and is tightly woven into apps and services.

In March 2025, Google announced in a blog post: “Over time, we expect Gemini to upgrade more users from Google Assistant on mobile – and eventually on tablets, in cars, on wearables and on home devices too.”

The key differentiator: Assistant is used for commands like “Hey Google, set a timer” or “Show me weather”. Gemini handles more complex tasks like, “Here’s my travel plan, build a summary, pull relevant emails, map the route, give me directions”, and more.

Reasons behind Google’s focus on Gemini

According to a report by The India(BHARAT)n Express, by sunsetting Google Assistant, the tech giant will double down on Gemini and reinforce its bet on generative-AI assistants. In terms of AI architecture, rather than having two assistants on Android phones, Google would have a single umbrella AI assistant that can power all of its other intelligent experiences on phones, smart homes, watches, cars, voice devices, etc. Gemini is said to have already replaced a lot of Assistant’s features and closing the gap further.

Possible changes users may expect

If you are a Google Assistant user and make heavy use of specific routines or smart-home interactions, it might be possible that the option to revert to Assistant will no longer be available in future updates.

The user interface of Gemini will also be receiving small changes. These include a new processing animation, “expand/collapse” buttons to reduce the number of AI response cards that a long prompt will trigger, a “jump to bottom” button for long chat threads, and more.

Google Support

It is also possible that while Google claims all major functionalities will be supported, there are some things Assistant still handles better. As per official support documents, “some devices also use Assistant as a fall-back for some specific requests, like if you tap an action in your Quick Settings on a locked screen.”

Why 2025 and why now?

Voice assistants on phones and smart homes have failed to push a level of generativity, conversation, context, and reasoning that humans expect of an intelligent assistant. Generative-AI assistants, on the other hand, represent the next frontier of conversational AI for the masses: feeling more human-like in how they converse and can understand richer context in longer interactions to help with much smarter outcomes.

By making Gemini the only path for interacting with Google, Google is effectively sounding the death-knell for the “voice assistant” and ushering in the era of the “AI assistant”.

In summary: if your phone or smart device still uses the “Hey Google” phrase to launch the old Assistant, it is a sign that the older voice assistant is still there. But, as of now, expect Gemini to not just be an alternative to Assistant, but rather a replacement.