It’s Official: Google Assistant is Dead, Replaced by Gemini

We knew this would happen at some point, but I’m still not sure anyone (including Google) is ready – Google Assistant is going away this year with Gemini taking its place.

Google made the announcement today, confirming that Gemini is the future of your on-device personal assistant. At some point “later this year,” Google will kill off the classic Google Assistant, making it no longer accessible on “most” mobile devices, with apps for it disappearing from app stores. No specific date was yet given, but the beginning could easily start around Google I/O in May.

Google’s plan is to put Gemini on your phones as its AI-powered assistant going forward. This has been an option for some time now, but it will become the only on-device assistant option this year.

Your phones won’t be alone either. Google is going to bring Gemini to tablets, cars, smartwatches, and headphones. Even your smart home devices, like Nest Hubs and speakers and TVs and displays, will all move over to some sort of “new experience” powered by Gemini. For those smart devices, Google plans to share more information “in the next few months.” As it stands for now, Google Assistant is still powering those.

Google still has some time to turn this Gemini experience into a true assistant, one that can do all of the old Google Assistant tasks and then some. After all, isn’t AI supposed to be super neat and cool and smart and powerful? Show us what you’ve got, Google, and I don’t mean by constantly telling us over and over again that Gemini is great for doing research. Most of us don’t need a research assistant. We need an assistant that actually manages our day.

Anyways, mini rant over, say “Goodbye!” to Google Assistant in 2025.

// Google