By Eric Ravenscraft
Publication Date: 2026-08-07 19:30:00
Google Assistant is about to get one heck of a headstone in the Google Graveyard. The voice assistant has been a handy tool for years, but the company has finally decided to replace it with Gemini entirely. If you’re not exactly thrilled about the AI-ification of every app you use, there are a few ways to make Gemini behave a bit more like the Assistant of yore.
The switch from Assistant has been coming for a while; it’s a seismic shift for a lot of devices. On top of deprecating Assistant on Android phones and tablets, it’s also disappearing for Wear OS devices and some Android Auto cars. Some smart home devices and TVs will still support Assistant, but you can switch to Gemini (and you might want to since the choice is likely to be made for you eventually).
Regardless of how you feel about AI chatbots, using Gemini might become unavoidable if you’re in the Google ecosystem. So, if you want to keep the functionality you had in your phone, car, or kitchen, it…
