Do you need to change?

The past few weeks have been full of headlines about Google’s rebranding of Bard to Gemini and the release of its Gemini AI app. The Gemini app gives you quick and easy access to the Gemini app on your phone. In fact, if you install the Gemini app, it will automatically replace Google Assistant with Google Gemini as your phone’s default smart assistant. The question is, although you can replace Google Assistant with Google Gemini, should you really do that?

What Gemini offers: contextual awareness and more

Endless possibilities

Many, including myself, hesitate to move into Gemini. As detailed in Google’s announcement, Gemini is capable of many tasks that Assistant can do, and can do even better. According to Google, here’s what Gemini can do for you:

• Learn more about a topic through conversation instead of browsing articles.
• Use the camera to take a photo and ask questions about what you’re seeing right now.
• Check your grammar and spelling, as well as translate your writing.
• Help find something to do and see where to find it.
• Create a summary of the topic in different formats, such as a list or table.
• Search Gmail for details within an email such as flight information or package arrival time.
• Create a travel plan including flights, hotels and an itinerary.
• Ask questions about the content on your screen.
• Use voice commands to take actions like turning on a smart light or setting a timer.

Many of these tasks can be done easily with the Google Assistant, but Gemini takes them to the next level. Google Assistant can show you flights, but Gemini can help you plan your entire trip. Gemini can often give you better answers than Google Assistant to a question. Many questions that would make Google Assistant answer “I don’t know, but I found these results on Search” will be fully answered by Gemini.

Additionally, some of these tasks, such as generating a summary, can only be done using Gemini’s AI smarts. Pairing access to different Google services with smart artificial intelligence will provide some benefits for users. Gemini can now, for example, tell you when a package will arrive based on an email from Gmail. These kinds of smarts are what Google Assistant should have had all along.

Where the Gemini falters: Some functions are missing

It is not yet a replacement

All of these features may seem like net positives, but there are also some downsides to consider. Many of the tasks that Gemini does for you are actually routed through Google Assistant. These tasks will be completed by Google Assistant through Gemini:

• Create or change a timer or alarm.
• Communicate via SMS or phone.
• Control your Android phone like opening an app or turning on a flashlight.
• Control and broadcast to your smart home devices.
• Read a webpage out loud or search for Pixel help on Pixel 8 or later.
• Set reminders, a recently added feature.

Google says Gemini is “still learning” how to do these tasks, so Google Assistant is currently handling them. That means Gemini isn’t any better than Google Assistant at these tasks, and according to Android Police’s Taylor Kerns, getting hands-on with Gemini can actually take longer.

Taylor initially noted that Gemini took a significant amount of time to complete many of these tasks, likely due to processing requests and sending them to Google Assistant for completion. I tried these features recently and they seem to work pretty comparable to Google Assistant now. Whether Google is improving Gemini’s responsiveness or whether demand for the service has normalized and reduced server load since launch, it’s significantly faster today than it was a few weeks ago.

There are also a few tasks that Gemini can’t yet perform that could be critical to using a virtual assistant for some people:

• Media controls for podcasts, music, radio and voice news.
• Routines, especially those related to the alarm.
• Interpreter mode to help translate between you and someone else.

Some of these features are quite important to users, myself included. One of the main things I use Google Assistant for is media control, and Gemini can’t do that. Again, this functionality is supposedly coming to Gemini in the future, but it’s not here yet.

Should you switch to Gemini?

Gemini probably can’t replace Assistant just yet

Ultimately, deciding whether or not it makes sense to move to Gemini depends on your personal use case. If you’re someone who’s excited about AI, wants to take full advantage of it, and doesn’t care about media controls or reminders, it probably makes sense to switch. If you depend on media controls, reminders, or quick replies to toggle smart home devices and send messages, you should probably stick with Google Assistant for now. If you want continuity with Assistant, it makes sense to stick with Google Assistant for now.

Gemini is currently not available on smart speakers, smart displays, smartwatches, headphones, etc., so you won’t be able to use it on other devices, only on your Android phone. While Gemini may come to other devices in the not-too-distant future, it’s not here yet, so you might get one response from your phone and another from your smart speaker. In addition, there are widespread concerns about whether AI will confidently lie to users and correctly cite its sources.

Personally, I will wait to change. Some features that Gemini lacks, such as media controls, are key tasks that I use my smartphone for every day. Other tasks, like controlling my smart home devices, setting reminders, and sending texts, are routed through the Google Assistant anyway, so the switch won’t really make any difference. These big caveats do not constitute a compelling reason for me to change. Hopefully these features will be added in the future, but for now I’m standing by.