The Gemini Android app, a personal assistant with productive artificial intelligence that has been integrated into Android to replace Google Assistant, is finally available in Spain and other European countries. We can easily do it with the application change of assistantsIt’s another step in the disappearance that Google has marked for the Assistant.

Asking the phone what the weather will be like tomorrow, asking how many hits Camilo Sesto wrote, or disabling Bluetooth are useful functions that Google Assistant has been doing on our Androids for years. Even interacting with home automation objects in our home, asking Google Assistant to turn on the vacuum cleaner, is a really comfortable thing to do. What if we asked you to write us some text or HTML code? It was clear that new trends required a change.

Aid missions change hands with the Gemini app

Starting Gemini after installation

So far and despite the fact that the Android app works perfectly on a European mobile phone with just the APK installed (Google did not limit the use of Gemini as an assistant), restricted the app from Play Store. That’s it: Gemini is rolling out to most European countries, as well as the vast majority of Latin America, as Google confirms.

The change does not represent improvements in the Gemini service as a personal assistant on Android: after installing the application from Google Play, the phone will prompt the replacement of the main assistant (Google Assistant) with the new one downloaded.

Our interaction with Gemini is so far similar to our interaction with Google Assistant. We can invoke it with “OK, Google”, start it with the power button (unless the shutdown menu is configured) and open Gemini from the installed application. The effect is the same: a sliding window at the bottom that opens when the assistant is listening.

We can talk to Gemini in a basic way, there is no conversation mode yet; It’s possible to ask it to generate text, code, and soon images; to be Upload photos for you to analyze, also files. Everything comes from Gemini and without the intervention of Google Assistant, with this integration the old assistant takes another step outside of Android. And without disappearing completely, since many functions of the old assistant are shared with the new one.

With the expansion of Gemini regions, Google is strengthening its generative AI brand across a majority of Android ecosystem devices. And it’s worth the leap; Developments in production expand the usage possibilities. There are also some issues: During our testing, we found that most Google Assistant routines don’t work on Gemini.

Cover image | Ivan Linares

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