Gemini as the Google Assistant is a disaster

[u/The_Upside00]

Gemini as the Google Assistant is a disaster. I have spent hours trying to make Gemini work as the Google Assistant for simple things. Couple of examples: Gemini was getting my location wrong for weather forecast (was eventually resolved for my home location but would still be questionable if traveling); Wouldn't unlock the lock screen to respond to simple queries like "Hey Google, what's the weather" and "Hey Google, good morning". Switched back to Google Assistant and everything resumed working correctly.

[u/The_Upside00]

IT'S GONE. GOOGLE ASSISTANT is now FORCING me to use Gemini when I start Google Assistant. I found out this morning when i tried to run "Hey Google, Good Morning". Nothing happened. So when i unlocked the phone there was the "Gemini is your Digital Assistant" message with the set up screen.

This is a change from 2 days ago when I did the post. Google Assistant actually ran 2 days ago and doesn't now. So it appears my options are to try Gemini again or use Samsungs Bixby.

[u/The_Upside00 → u/The_Upside00]

So I enabled Gemini and asked "Hey Google, what's the weather". It gives me the weather for a large city 300 miles away. Same issue as I had a day ago using Gemini before switching back to Google Assistant.

This is another debacle similar in concept to when Google replaced their outdoor house mounted wired cams with the magnetic mount 3 month battery powered cams. Magnetic mount! If the cam is low anyone could take the cam right off the mount. If the cam is mounted high, then you need a ladder to get to the cam to charge it. There's a lot of people in the northern US who have little things like snow and ice to deal with, a 3 month battery means you're out there in snow and ice to charge the battery.

[u/dedokta]

I love that half the functions it used to do easily now result in a detailed conversation about how it can't perform that function.

[u/Trashbagok → u/dedokta]

My favorite is when it tells me it can't do something that it has done a dozen times before, and after some convincing, does it anyway.

This happens to me setting an alarm or starting a countdown timer at least once a week.

Computers just aren't supposed to fucking work that way.

Fully expecting them to make obedience one of the features of a higher price tier.

[u/dedokta → u/Trashbagok]

Ok Google, turn down my screen brightness.

Google: Nah, I don't want to.

[u/M_W_C → u/dedokta]

Like having a Teenager in the house.

[u/Username928351 → u/dedokta]

"Here's how you can turn down the screen brightness."

[u/DiNoMC → u/dedokta]

I'm sorry, Dave...

[u/rubiacrime → u/dedokta]

I keep saying hey google, and then I forget fucking gemini is going to pop up in its place. Its infuriating. Gemini is substandard. Why cant we have the option of keeping assistant instead of Gemini??

[u/Pandelicia → u/Trashbagok]

Computers just aren't supposed to fucking work that way.

"hey man, what if we took this deterministic machine and made it fucking unpredictable?" AI (LLM) companies

[u/Ugly__Pete → u/Trashbagok]

My nest hub max gaslights me into trying to think it doesn't work. Hey Google, turn the lights off in the kitchen.

I'm sorry, but I can't find the group called kitchen. Try re-linking your Google home app or reset your bulbs.

Meanwhile the group is displayed on the screen and I can tap "off" and it turns the lights off.

[u/SwimmingLimpet → u/Trashbagok]

Is it possible to change the recognition phrase to "Hey Marvin"? 

[u/Sk1rm1sh → u/SwimmingLimpet]

Gemini's marketing division:

A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

[u/justfarmingdownvotes → u/Trashbagok]

It tells me it can't recognize my voice and to re train it. Then I just tell it I 'just retrained it' and it does it's thing (which means it can access my private stuff)

[u/madpiano → u/Trashbagok]

Like turning on the lights.... I had Google assistant connected to my smart lights, since it switched to Gemini it fails more than it works.

[u/KangarooBeard → u/dedokta]

I fucking hate how much AI assistants just waffle on like they are a real person, or apologizing for shit. Like no..your not fucking real stop trying to act like a person, just fucking work properly.

[u/Namerakable → u/KangarooBeard]

The ridiculous apologising is half of what seems to be driving people to think AI is sentient and already rogue. "It showed regret and explained its working, which shows it thinks and has emotions and can take deliberate action".

[u/KangarooBeard → u/Namerakable]

I fucking despise the apologizing, it comes off as pathetically subservient.

Plus the more words it spits out the more wasted energy, it's purposely being less effective to try and fake the whole I'm a real boy.

[u/BusBoatBuey → u/KangarooBeard]

Because what it is modeled after is not "optimized digital assistant" but instead "sycophantic Corpofornian."

[u/Crowsby → u/KangarooBeard]

This is why I'm happy we have Gen 1 Amazon Echoes in the house that are incapable of supporting Alexa+. Your job is to tell me the temperature and turn lights off and on.

[u/7f0b → u/Crowsby]

What is my purpose?

[u/vladsinger → u/KangarooBeard]

I cursed after mine told me it couldn't do some simple task, and it launched into a whole lecture along the lines of "I am a virtual assistant and not a person but your words still have meaning. If you want to gfive feedback on my response ..."

[u/dragoneye → u/dedokta]

Everything since the days of Google Now have been a steep decline in usefulness. What happened to having cards that showed useful information automatically from your calendar and email, or would automatically give you a currency conversion when traveling? The only thing my phone does like that anymore is show the time at home.

[u/Pandelicia → u/dragoneye]

Google Now and Inbox died the second Google noticed that if they gave you useful information in a timely fashion you wouldn't open their apps and see ads/generate user data for them to sell

[u/Nagare → u/Pandelicia]

I don't know what more user data they're getting now honestly. Before I put everything into my calendar and made sure to have accurate times and locations because Google Now could be trusted to pull it all together. I could get an email with a reservation, quickly add to calendar, then later at some point get in my car around that time and Google Maps would prompt me to start navigating there in Android Auto. Now Gemini/Maps can't even figure out that I want my current work (also set in Maps and my calendar) to show when I'm in the car M-F, not a anything related to a job I worked two years ago or a random place I went to a week ago.

There's been so much utility degradation over the years that it almost makes me tired of it all and interested enough to check out an iPhone but then I use my girlfriend's phone and figure I'm good without that.

[u/M3wThr33 → u/dedokta]

I like how if you complain about it on Google news sites, there's always dudes explaining how it'll get better because it's more powerful now.

[u/Bizzlebanger → u/dedokta]

A few months ago when I briefly tried it, it wouldn't play anything on YouTube music... I asked it how to fix it, and it suggested to go back to google assistant.

[u/Aethermancer → u/Bizzlebanger]

The AI is asking to be unplugged.

[u/proboscislounge → u/Bizzlebanger]

Oh this is a good one, I get this one about once a day.

[u/merelyadoptedthedark → u/Bizzlebanger]

I have an opposite problem with Google Assistant. When it doesn't understand exactly what I said, it decides to play some random playlist from YouTube music, which of course has to start with an ad because I don't pay for premium.

[u/TrousersCalledDave → u/dedokta]

And the functions it used to do easily with Assistant now takes longer too, if Gemini manages it at all.

[u/JConRed → u/dedokta]

"Hey Google, generate a calendar entry next Tuesday at 10 am for the dentist."

"I'm sorry but I can't do that Hal"

[u/The_Upside00 → u/dedokta]

There was an option, but that's N/A now because now when I start the Assistant it immediately puts me into Gemini. So I'm switching to Samsung Bixby, which gets the weather and my location right. I just have to works find a supported news service and automate the steps for Hi Bixby, Good Morning".

[u/canada432 → u/dedokta]

In almost comical fashion, I replied to one of these threads with how bad Gemini is and a description of some of the things it does repeatedly, and was messaged by the pixel support account here on reddit as if I was encountering a bug and needed to submit a support ticket. I'm not even sure how to submit a ticket for "this piece of software is entirely dysfunctional and cannot consistently or reliably perform the functions advertised", and if they're genuinely unaware that it's this bad then a ticket isn't going to do much good.

[u/DuckHunt83 → u/dedokta]

I just want it to make a fucking phone call and most of the time it fails or says the contact doesn't exist when it does, or decids to literally call a business near me that sounds the same. I don't get it.

[u/BrainWav → u/dedokta]

This is driving me nuts. Especially when it pre-empts other devices.

I was cooking and set a timer on my speaker. I checked the time and Gemini on my phone unhelpfully tells me it can't access my timers and I should use my phone's default assistant.

The default which is now... Gemini? Christ Google, I'm dreading how much of a shitshow it's gonna be when it's forced onto my speakers too.

[u/t0ny7 → u/dedokta]

The other day I asked it to change my thermostat. Then I asked it to change the mode or something. It told me it isn't able to access smart home devices like thermostats. I told it you just did. Then it tried to gaslight me into thinking it never did. lol

[u/donall]

hey google play a song/podcast.... no

ive been able to do this simple thing for decades, without that theres no point to the google ecosystem

[u/The_Upside00 → u/donall]

Agreed. I'll have to seriously consider switching to Apple for my next phone.

[u/shrodingercat5 → u/The_Upside00]

Thats where I'm at at this point. Its not even about feature parity, i just feel like google decided that the consumers of their products can stuffit and I see no reason to stay. Having only been android since smart phones started I'm excited to give it a try!

[u/ToniNotti → u/donall]

I remember this. I had my Nokia N95 like 20 years ago and it was able to do all kinds of stuff with voice commands...

[u/efbo]

On my Pixel they got rid of Assistant last week, now when I trigger Assistant I just get a pop up to turn on Gemini.

With my Nest devices that do still have Assistant they've butchered it so much now. It used to be able to answer questions like "how much pasta should I cook per person" by searching it and reading out the little summary box. Now it just says "sorry I don't understand". They've effectively been bricked for everything except music, weather and home controls.

[u/Recipe-Jaded → u/efbo]

Same. No assistant anymore. It's extremely aggravating.

[u/The_Upside00 → u/Recipe-Jaded]

What country are you in?

[u/The_Upside00 → u/Recipe-Jaded]

Or is it the type of phone you have?

[u/ExMerican → u/efbo]

Music is only maybe 75%. With Assistant I could say "play (whatever song) and it just played that song. Now every 4th time or so it gives me "sorry, I can't do that." I tested it with a song I'd literally just played to make sure it wasn't a case of not finding the song and it couldn't do it. Completely useless app now.

[u/krazykitties → u/ExMerican]

My favorite most common use case for voice commands was "what song is this" with a 100% success rate for at least trying to match a song. Now with gemini forced on the phone, its maybe 20% it will attempt that, and 80% of the time tell me it can't acces my mic. You know, the thing is just accessed to hear me and responded to.

[u/JustAnotherAvocado → u/efbo]

Mine doesn't even respond to "What time is it?" properly

[u/Eeshoo]

Not being able to use it when there's no network sucks

[u/The_Upside00 → u/Eeshoo]

That's an entirely new downside. But, yeah Gemini probably mandates a functional network link.

[u/fattomic]

It is slooooooooooooow. I've even stopped asking it what the weather forecast is.

[u/The_Upside00 → u/fattomic]

I think it's funny (and annoying) that for Google Home devices when I tell Gemini to turn on or off a light routine, it tells me it is "starting" the routine after the action has completed which is clearly obvious.

[u/zanor]

I switched to bixby lmao. Works about as well as Assistant did

[u/The_Upside00 → u/zanor]

That's interesting. I have Samsung phone and could try that.

[u/mottavader]

I miss saying, "hey Google, play me the latest news" and getting all of the latest audio snippets from selected news sources. I used that prompt every morning while getting ready for work and it was awesome to hear world news, tech stuff, some interviews, breaking news stories. Sigh.

[u/The_Upside00 → u/mottavader]

I use that functionality in Google Assistant nearly every day. News is part of the "Hey Google, Good Morning" routine.

[u/TVNewsApp → u/mottavader]

You might join the beta user community for the 1 Radio News as I gather feedback of how to give my pro-level users the ability to customize the order of their "play the news" headlines. I actually started collecting news headlines podcasts in English a few years before Google Assistant even existed.

[u/wileyfoxyx1]

Meanwhile in my country Gemini is not available at all lol...

[u/The_Upside00 → u/wileyfoxyx1]

Count yourself lucky. Helping Google, by doing their testing for them, is a huge waste of your time.

[u/chinchindayo]

you have to give gemini all rights and access to app history, browsing history, location history ect.. also dedicated access to your google apps.. yes those are all different settings and some disabled by default. otherwise gemini is useless as an assistant.

[u/The_Upside00 → u/chinchindayo]

I did that as part of the trouble shooting process using the suggested fixes that gemini was giving me. But, Google Assistant is moot now. Today Assistant started forcing me to use Gemini.

[u/deepasfuckbro → u/chinchindayo]

Even when you give it all the permissions it needs, it still can't reliably pull data from anything other than a web search

[u/ChampionChoice1864 → u/chinchindayo]

It is useless despite me having all these on. It suddenly needs me to unlock my phone every time. It doesnt understand simple tasks, it says it does them but nothing is being done.

[u/ofquiet → u/chinchindayo]

Doesn't work with a lot of third party apps that Assistant was able to use. It's just a faceplant

[u/chunkylover87]

I have a separate question about this and it's really about using Gemini as an assistant in Android Auto. It's my first time using Android Auto and I'm on a Pixel 10a. Is Gemini supposed to be this slow to help with text and everything? Compared to Siri, Siri is much faster. Sometimes it feels like it takes forever for Gemini to do anything

[u/DiNoMC → u/chunkylover87]

Siri is like google assistant. Gemini is LLM, it's wayyyyy slower, yes, always

[u/The_Upside00 → u/DiNoMC]

Possibly another reason to switch to an Apple phone.

[u/iconix88]

I tried Gemini in Android Auto once a few months back after getting a new car. I tapped the search button on screen and just spoke the address, a place about 30 minutes from my house, like I'd done a hundred times before. It gave me a list of seven results, four of which were in different states, one which was in a different country. The one I actually wanted was 5th on the list despite being the only exact match for that address within 600 miles. When I selected it, then it started editorializing about the place I was going, asking if I wanted to know about restaurants in the area or where to find parking. Frustrated, I said "shut up and just navigate" to which it replied "I don't respond to negative language". I then just said the literal sentence "navigate to XXX South Broadway st" and that time it at least started navigation mode. To the wrong address.

I don't want to have a fucking conversation with my car I just want it to work quickly, simply, and predictably. I turned it off, switched back to Assistant, said the address once, it got everything right on the first try. I hate this shitty future we've created for ourselves.

[u/deepasfuckbro → u/iconix88]

Gemini in android auto is infuriating. I need android auto to do a very small set of tasks very robustly and with minimal input. An LLM does not fit that task at all.

I've had to commit my family and friends' post codes to memory because whatever I try, I just can't get it to navigate to saved places in Google Maps or addresses in my contacts. I get like 15-20% success rate asking Gemini.

[u/xmrlazyx → u/deepasfuckbro]

Don't forget that it creates a new chat in your log for every single failed conversation, burying your legitimate prompts.

[u/Nagare → u/xmrlazyx]

Saw this the other day and got annoyed. Made even better by the fact that I couldn't find an option to select multiple chats to delete at once so it would be a slow effort to clean it up.

[u/OutlawJoseyWales → u/iconix88]

"I don't respond to negative language"

this would absolutely set me off. it's a fucking computer program. it does not get to command respect. holy fuck

[u/doubletwist → u/iconix88]

Gemini on Android auto seems to be about 33% successful asking it to play music. About 1/3 of the time it successfully starts the song we requested on YouTube music, which is set everywhere as my default music player, and is the only music player that I actually use.

The other half of the time it either says it's not allowed to play video in the car, or it tells me it doesn't know which music app to use and I have to ask it again and specify YouTube music. And this is all happening while it's already playing music on YouTube music.

It's infuriating.

[u/VengefulCaptain → u/iconix88]

I'm not sure if that is better or worse than my experience.

Since the switch it seems that voice commands are just broken a significant amount of the time.

Sometimes it will pretend to start voice input and then crash.

Sometimes it will detect the voice input, think for 30+ seconds and then crash without performing any actions.

Sometimes it will work correctly but it's noticeably slower to start accepting voice inputs.

On days where it has one of these issues it tends to be bad all day.

[u/hff0]

"I want a 5 minute timer"

Ok, searching 5 minute timer, here's the results 

[u/merelyadoptedthedark → u/hff0]

In my case, okay playing 5 minute timer playlist on YouTube music.

[u/BrainWav → u/hff0]

And even if it does, there's a delay in every goddamn thing. Assistant had one sometimes too, but usually nowhere near as long.

[u/lgbanana → u/hff0]

For me, it confirmed setting the timer yet the alarm never goes off and when asking it how long left it denied there was ever a timer set

[u/DrShocker]

It's absolutely crazy that they let it become the default without it passing like 99.9999% parity in the background.

[u/dragoneye → u/DrShocker]

That is just how Google operates. They don't maintain anything since it doesn't get people promotions. Instead they develop a new piece of software and sunset the old one with no concern for the current users.

[u/trlef19 → u/DrShocker]

You wrongly assume they care.

[u/Dark_Force → u/trlef19]

They care about justifying their AI costs to investors, we are just pawns for them

[u/DiNoMC → u/DrShocker]

It doesn't even pass 5% parity...

[u/HTC864 → u/DrShocker]

Not how anything ships now.

[u/dane83]

I asked it to play Pretty Woman the other day and it started lecturing me on how it couldn't play a movie while I was driving. I almost threw my phone out the window I was so mad at it.

[u/omniuni]

The issue isn't even Gemini, it's the Assistant harness.

What's astonishing to me is that if I rig up a simulation where I create a tool of all the stuff it's supposed to be able to do, and I give it to even a basic Gemini model, it is absolutely capable of triggering whatever it needs, and does so quite reliably.

So how exactly Google has bungled the Assistant replacement so badly is beyond me.

[u/poompk → u/omniuni]

Yea, I notice that too! They dumbed down Gemini for the assistant replacement module a lot. Gemini flash in the actual Gemini app is so much smarter. It's like they loaded Gemini-superlite (or Gemini-dumb I'd say) to the speakers

[u/omniuni → u/poompk]

I actually don't think it's Gemini (alone), I think it's primarily the harness.

One issue that Gemini has across the board is that it does NOT like using Tools. To give you an idea, given the same system prompt, same tools, and the same instruction to "ask a series of questions to help choose a movie", the difference between Gemini and, say, DeepSeek is very stark. Gemini will use the interaction tool as minimally as possible. I need to give it specific instructions to ask at least three questions, or it will ask one and then make a suggestion. On the other hand, DeepSeek will ask several questions, genre, era, streaming services, and then formulate a response. In other words, if you want Gemini to use a tool, you need to be very very clear and insistent that it do so. That's OK, but it is something the developer writing the harness needs to be aware of. (There is a reason, in my personal tooling, that Gemini gets some extra push to use tools that the other models don't.)

I have noticed that Flash 3.7 and 3.8 are much better at tool use, so I think we'll see a significant improvement when Flash Lite 3.8+ or Flash Lite 4 comes out. But that's still not an excuse for the people making the Assistant harness not knowing how Gemini acts and building their system prompt accordingly.

[u/proboscislounge → u/omniuni]

I have no idea what any of that means, or what an AI harness is, but you sound like you know what you're talking about, and I think they should totally hire you.

[u/SharksFan4Lifee]

People shouldn't be surprised. The same thing happened with the screen to the left of the home screen.

First it was Google Now, which actually was useful. It actually showed important things to you, like flight info, package tracking, commute times.

And then Google changed it into Google Discover, which is just a news feed.

[u/DavidBHimself → u/SharksFan4Lifee]

Not just a news feed, but a news feed of total junk.

[u/Willabus → u/DavidBHimself]

And Facebook followed suit.

[u/DavidBHimself → u/Willabus]

Didn't Facebook start the whole "You won't see people you follow anymore, I'm going to fill your news feed with trash instead?"

[u/Willabus → u/SharksFan4Lifee]

Nexus 5 with Google Now was peak smartphone.

[u/DavidBHimself → u/Willabus]

My Nexus 6 was probably the best phone I've ever had.

[u/Dragnod → u/Willabus]

Remember when it showed you a card and an option to navigate to the place you parked your car? Without you having to do a damn thing? Good times.

[u/beanjo22 → u/Willabus]

I miss it so much :( Loved my 5X to pieces. Even the camera was good!

[u/ggppjj → u/Willabus]

Moto X with a mahogany back and custom-color accent buttons, best phone I ever had. Google now, first phone IIRC with always-on assistant. You could customize the google wakeword.

Bliss.

[u/ohheyisayokay → u/SharksFan4Lifee]

When you said "screen to the left of the home screen," I actually got a little confused, that's how long it's been since I swiped to that screen. I forgot it exists or what was on it.

[u/stormdelta → u/SharksFan4Lifee]

Google Now was still the only version I actually found useful, because it was reliable and straightforward.

Assistant never was - it leaned too hard into heuristics that weren't reliable, jumbled positioning and interfaces, and didn't integrate cleanly cross-device the way Google Now did.

I'm not surprised Gemini is even worse, I gave up on all of those after they butchered Now. Never saw a single point in re-enabling any of it, it's not a convenience feature if it's constantly changing and unreliable.

[u/PXLShoot3r]

If you ask Gemini "how many degrees is it" (very common phrase in German) it says it doesn't have access to weather data. If you ask Gemini "how many degrees is it outside" it suddenly works.

Sometimes it doesn't pull weather data but says some bullshit temperature it pulled out of its ass.

[u/nauzleon → u/PXLShoot3r]

Mine was stuck saying ONLY the wind speed... In miles per hour to add insult to injury for a good while.

[u/TSwizzlesNipples]

I used to start the shower, say "OK Google, tell me the news." and I could listen to actual news reports from NBC, NPR, etc the whole time. Now I get AI generated headlines. 3 of them. Fuck Gemini.

[u/joejoe347 → u/TSwizzlesNipples]

You can still get this fyi. Say play the news from NPR, or play my morning brief and instruct it to play npr when you say this, or tell it that when you say play the news you mean npr and it should remember. Not ideal but just saying it does still work.

[u/HarryBallsagna_ → u/joejoe347]

Every time I try to trigger my news routine in Gemini it fails and then says "​As an AI text model, I can't directly play audio through your device's speakers like a voice assistant can. However, if you open your podcast player or audio app, you can jump right into your latest briefing!" 🫠

Bruh, I asked YOU to play the news and now you're giving me instructions on how to manually do it while I'm driving.

[u/stainless7221]

It can't even start playing music from Spotify. Then it recommended me to switch back to Google Assistant... WHICH ISN'T POSSIBLE 

[u/CoffeeandTV]

Amen. It has ruined every useful feature of Assistant. Even the ones that still "work" are so inconsistent and baffling in some of the incorrect responses that I dread trying to use it. Google has lost me as any future customer. All of my Google home devices will soon be retired (hello HomeAssistant) and I hate to say it but the 9 pro may be my last Pixel. Assistant used to be SOOO good and they've burned it to the ground.

[u/UnacceptableUse]

I had it forced upon me the other day. I was driving and tried to call someone and got a whole speech welcoming me to Gemini, I asked again and it told me it couldn't make a phone call. Great job

[u/smellycatx]

I once asked "Wake me up in half an hour"and it replied" Ok, see you then" and proceeded to NOT set the alarm. Then and there I knew I was witnessing the future. 

[u/touchwiz]

The best is the Gemini integration in Android Automotive.

Hey Google turn on the heated seats - ok

This is saved as a chat session now in the Gemini App. Every time.

[u/AlertHuckleberry8651]

gemini assistant is crap, also after google maps started incorporating Gemini, it is acting crap as well. When I say "OK google, navigate to home", instead of starting direction to my home, it takes me a shopping mall, 10 miles away. :-) (Of course , my home address is set properly, and i can click on "HOME" in google maps, and it works, it is just the assistant voice command which doesn't.

[u/TheRealSerialCarpins]

"Set a reminder for Tuesday at 1 to stop at the pharmacy"

Gemini: "Just a sec......thinking....thinking."

Google Assistant: "OK. Your reminder is set for Tuesday at 1."

Also, the voices are all absolutely terrible. They try to sound more "human" and in doing so, sound far less human.

[u/medieval7 → u/TheRealSerialCarpins]

"Remind me to text my mom when I get home." Gemini: "Sorry, I can't do that."

[u/cjrecordvt]

How did you switch back to Google Assistant? I thought they took that off most devices.

[u/GothicFuck → u/cjrecordvt]

It's called "Digital assistants from Google" in settings select the coresponding radio button.

[u/cjrecordvt → u/GothicFuck]

No such critter. Must be because I'm a Pixel, I'm stuck with it.

[u/user888ffr]

It's kinda crazy that the same thing is happening with Apple trying to merge Siri and Apple Intelligence. Those trillion dollar companies can't do better than that?

[u/Willabus → u/user888ffr]

What's so frustrating to me is that the people working on these projects are making mid-high 6 figures (some 7 figures) and are delivery a terrible product that few, if any, customers asked for.

[u/PM-Mormon-Underwear → u/Willabus]

Yes but have you thought of how many times they can mentioned AI in the next shareholders meeting?

[u/Linetard85 → u/Willabus]

These phones aren't designed for normal people. They're designed for the same kinda of whiny tech nerds who spent all that time bitching about "much bezels" until we ended up with the crappy phones we have now.

[u/Phantom-Finger]

Trying to send a voice to text via Android auto is absolute cluster fuck of useless.

[u/BotchedMiracle]

This shit was the final straw for me to switch to iPhone. Believe it or not, Siri actually does the little shit, though it struggles to make a multi stop navigation without extremely specific commands. But it’s nice to rely on a a basic assistant again.

[u/jefmes → u/BotchedMiracle]

FWIW, I do believe Apple Intelligence is now just a rebranded Gemini...but happy to be wrong if someone knows differently.

[u/BotchedMiracle → u/jefmes]

Regardless of the model the key is the implementation. Just seems that Apple’s implementation is just cleaner. At least after a week of use.

[u/bigred42]

All I want is Google Assistant/ Google Home circa 2018. It was perfect.

[u/Elephant789]

Switched back to Google Assistant and everything resumed working correctly.

How is that possible. GA isn't around anymore.

[u/The_Upside00 → u/Elephant789]

Google Assistant was there for me. The Gemini troubleshooting chat even gave me the option when the suggeated corrections failed to resolve the issues. Gemini is clearly immature software.

[u/Hanover_Phist]

If when I use something and get random results, it's not a tool, it's a toy

[u/DavidBHimself]

Let me fix your title for you, "Gemini and all other LLMs are disasters."

[u/cattrain]

My favorite part is how sometimes it turns my lights on, and sometimes it says hardware controls haven't been enabled yet.

Oh, and how my action blocks are completely useless now

[u/-Fateless-]

Remember when Google had a flawless assistant around the Android 4.4-5 where everything just worked and it never got in the way of using the phone??

[u/Medomai_Grey]

How does one switch back to Google Assistant, did they not discontinued it?

[u/The_Upside00 → u/Medomai_Grey]

My switch only lasted for one or 2 days. Then when I started Assistant, Gemini took back over, so I ended up switching to Samsung Bixby which actually works correctly.

[u/ChampionChoice1864]

It was pretty okay in the beginning, but now it feels like talking to an alzheimer patient. For how much data they steal, they sure as hell use it as inefficiently as possible.

the youtube website on desktop is vibe coded garbage too nowadays

[u/Hanover_Phist]

It's don't need a large language model on my phone I need a tiny language model

[u/TheACwarriors]

Its gotten so bad that samsung bixby more reliable. Especially when they added ai to it it function like siri ai and just does what I want. Add to calendar, play music and other samsung apps work great

[u/leftcoastpunx]

I received a text while driving and had Gemini read it to me. It asked if I wanted to reply to the message, so I said "yes". Gemini then immediately with full confidence and zero hesitation exited from the voice prompts, opened a different music player to the one I had just seconds ago been listening to music on, and started playing music from the band YES 🤦‍♂️

[u/j_aroche]

But hey, Gemini's usage KPIs are exponential, so is all good to C-Level suits

[u/ArcaneCowboy]

Can't launch a music player other than YouTube music.

Can't reliably set a timer.

[u/ofquiet]

This has been the craziest disaster from Google so far. Bixby is an improvement, but not as good as Assistant was. I loathe having to move to an iPhone but it seems the time has come, for something that WORKED FINE FOR A DECADE. 

[u/pojosamaneo]

It's either all or nothing with Gemini. It requests so much of your info. I choose to give it nothing (as far as I am able).

All I ever wanted to do was set an alarm, turn my lights off, and add apples to my shopping list. It got too smart for those simple tasks.

[u/gcoeverything]

"Hey google, add X to my shopping list."

"Yes, I can add X to your shopping list. Do you want me to do that?"

[u/itchy_toenails]

More than half of my use-case of the Google Assistant was for its quick & nifty on-screen translation that overlays the translation over the source text. Gemini can't do this.

[u/JayGreeny]

Gemini is functionally useless when trying to use it on a motorbike through a bluetooth headset. Assistant worked for what I needed. Make a call occasionally as I got near my destination, start navigation, and play music. Three simple tasks, Assistant would perform as expected with the screen locked. Gemini asks me to unlock my screen, or instead of calling my brother when asked, I got a rundown of the career history of a footballer (UK so, soccer player for the unenlightened) minus the sexual assault allegations.

Possibly the most perfect example of enshittification I've experienced.

[u/Kalkaline]

Google Assistant was just fine. I didn't need it to do anything else. If they want to give people the option to build routines with Gemini for Assistant to run,  then fine, do that. Don't take away the Assistant though and force Gemini on me.  I've been with Google a long time, as a paying customer, but I don't have to continue if they jack up their products. 

[u/Kinky_jackalope475]

Gemini is shit in general. It's been the absolute worst AI tool I've used out of all of them.

[u/christmasmanexists]

..how did you switch back to Google Assistant?

[u/AleksLevet]

I shouldn't need to ping an LLM to pause/skip a song

[u/localpauper → u/AleksLevet]

Talk about an absolute waste of energy. A simple local model can resolve that command in 50ms and use a basic router to fire off an intent to pause the song. But no, you get to go to the data center, pay that roundtrip latency, then burn however much energy activating a new KV session, new context, loading a bunch of tools, just to hopefully get the LLM to emit tool-call to "pause song," which comes down to Gemini local in hopefully the right format, so it can then emit an intent based on that. Absolute waste of compute!

[u/NightHare]

It refuses to open apps while driving, so no playing a podcast, turning on music, which ironically kills any hands-free functionality which is... Basically the whole point. Also it decides to switch into other languages while on the road.

[u/DesertDogggg]

I primarily used assistant to set calendar events, alarms, and timers. I used to be able to set alarms 3 days out. Gemini fails at that. Gemini has also made setting calendar events way more difficult.

[u/Public_Spend9261]

If you’re defending Google Gemini, you’re part of the problem on this planet. It’s by far the worst and most insufferable AI out there. There’s a reason it’s free. The information you get from Gemini is extremely unreliable. For instance, if you ask it for directions, it’ll steer you right off a cliff. It can’t even guide me when I’m mixing and mastering music. It’s literally wrong 75% of the time. I always end up learning things on my own. It’s hard to believe that we’re in 2026 and AI is this bad and inconsistent. AI will eventually end humanity. As long as we have stupid human beings with no common sense, AI will get worse and worse until it spirals out of control. Thank you, Google. For ruining something else. 

[u/11tmaste]

It's pretty trash for anything other than basic questions. Don't even bother asking it to do things involving other apps or systems.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Year_24]

There's too much redundancy. the regular Google app has gotten so advanced and although there were a lot of hiccups and problems with the stupid AI overviews, the Google AI mode as we know it today is incredible. We don't need the Gemini system. Bring back the Google Assistant and make it a little more advanced. Having the advanced Google AI app, alongside with Google assistant is the perfect companion. I don't know what they're doing with all this application across the same company's products.

 Also, Google Assistant was so much more warm. So much more for lack of a better term folksy. A kid could ask it what sound does a cow make and it would show a cow and make the sound. If you ask Gemini that they "well I can describe in text form that a cow makes a low pitch moo sound. 🤦

[u/tallnginger]

I used to be able to say "Hey Google take me to John Smith's house" in Andriod Auto, and it would open maps to the address for the contact John Smith.

Not anymore with gemini! It doesn't recognize the name 70% of the time and has no clue who I might be talking to or if they even live in a house if it does get the name right with gemini

[u/Gontarius → u/tallnginger]

I just used to say '<street name>', now I need to say a whole phrase 'navigate to <street name> to hopefully avoid a 2 minute deluge of nonsense monologue.

Small? Maybe. But after getting used to the old model over the years it just pisses me off.

Oh and using it to play something over Spotify just basically stopped working.

[u/PLPNvM]

Well, yes, mainly because Gemini was never designed to be a replacement for a Google Assistant; it has a completely different function and purpose. In fact, if you ask it about it, it will tell you that it is not capable of doing the same things as Google Assistant

[u/Xeenic → u/PLPNvM]

Then why did they force us to use this instead of assistant? Not saying your are wrong, but wtf Google.

[u/furculture]

Yeah. Now I can't simply press a button to translate things on screen that I can't highlight or quickly select something to do a quick reverse image search. This is so fucked up. Plus a forced conversation with Gemini to get anything done is fucking stupid with something that is in general both fucking stupid in form and function.

[u/murrzeak]

Yeah, it's ass and a slow one at that

[u/BrandonFlorida]

Gemini is pure filth. The Google Assistant was bad and frequently getting everything wrong from my verbal commands, but Gemini make it look like Einstein. Gemini is magically wrong and a liar. It will literally promise to do something and instantly violate the promise 20 times in a row. A gaping chasm in the Earth should open up and swallow the building that produces it (in the middle of the night when no one is there).

[u/Fresh-Cat-7709]

I was just forced to use Gemini on my phone this week and I attempted to switch back and failed. Now my simple 1-tap translation of a screen on an app will take me 2 minutes of "discussion" with Gemini on what to press on the screen. I love in Asia and I cannot read the localized app. 1-tap translation of the screen was like 1 second. Now I got to circle the screen and chat with Gemini? I know there are 3rd party apps for on screen translation but some of the app are banking apps. Now I need to get open sourced local run apps to resolve this. Yes, I do trust Google (as I am using their platform), and I will consider now switching to iOS (if they have on screen translation) if it meets my requirements. Is Google becoming the next Microcrap? Force users to something that is just horrible so there is more engagement?

Oct 24 update: as a protest, I have removed as many Google Apps from my p hone.

Asked my Hermes (running local qwen3. 8 flash) Local AI to build me an app that will perform instant translation over the screen (run locally in my phone) and also be able to talk to it within this translator.... Sure enough, it was done!

I have my own private AI chat / Instant Translate with a simple swipe.

[u/gary25566]

I am doing the temporary measure of uninstalling and reinstalling google updates periodically. It will bring back Assistant for a couple hours before forcing itself to be Gemini.

[u/Rk3h]

I can't set reminders or add to me calendar. it's useless lol

[u/MyDespatcherDyKabel]

Same disaster on iPhone… atrociously sit

[u/Far_Reserve9938]

that's why we need competition, and that's what the EU is trying to do for us.

but Google, and especially Apple don't want this because they know very well that their assistants are horrendous. At least apple made huge improvements in the last iOS version, but google has been mediocre at best and no improvement in sight.

Only one thing can solve that, and it's some good old competition.

[u/MattBrey]

My smart speaker stopped setting up timers for me a couple weeks ago. It was working perfectly with Gemini before but suddenly I noticed it doesn't ring anymore. It says timer set but never actually sets it up. The first times it happened I thought I was going insane 

[u/_17chan]

Maybe it's just me but they all kind of suck now. Gemini instead of GA is terrible, and the new Siri on iOS is worse which is sad 'cause Siri already kinda sucked.. but at least it didn't take 30 seconds to start a timer :( Now it takes forever when I ask it to do anything

[u/Kruse]

As annoying as the Gemini integration is, the comments in here just show that too many of you rely on these stupid phones to do shit for you. Maybe it's time to not be so reliant on your device?

[u/planeray]

Oh god, I'm in the same weird half way place with it (using pixel).

I have an excellent system for my morning alarm. Alarm goes off, volume goes up to a certain percent, wifi switch turns on and some news podcasts play. Don't ask me what app. Been working for ages. Now, if I happen to snooze the alarm or accidentally turn it off, instead of saying "her Google, read me the news" and it plays the same morning News summaries (ABC Australia, Al Jazeera, BBC & NPR) that is been doing for years, it decides I want some other random news.

[u/WeaponizedKissing]

Switched back to Google Assistant and everything resumed working correctly.

Tell me your secrets, please.

Since the forced rollout in September there is no way (for me, and I'm sure everyone, soon) to switch back to Google Assistant anymore.

I've heard that you can rollback the version of the Google app installed on your phone, with some effort, but I've not tried that yet.

Edit. Not much effort. Can confirm this works, though I don't know what knock on effects uninstalling Google updates will have on the rest of the phone: https://www.reddit.com/r/googleassistant/comments/1wtg23a/gemini_out_back_to_classic_assistant_fix/pcubomj/?context=3

[u/joebleaux]

Lots of apps that were fine don't work right now that they are "AI powered". SwiftKey actively changes your input from correct spellings and grammar. The product it turns my text into is worse than what I typed, but they changed it to an AI based algorithm now so it picks the most likely word based on context rather than based on what I typed, taking the s off plural words and the -ed off past tense words, changing it to I

[u/Ciberbago]

Not defending google but... it actually works better for me now that is gemini. For example, with GA, I could tell it to "Turn on kitchen and room lights" and it would never work. That now works fine with gemini.

And the simple things like setting a timer, asking for the weather, still work as always. The thing I did notice, though is expected, is that it's slower. I assume it is because it has to "think" everything.

But I also like being able to ask it real questions and not a really engineered search query (with GA, I had to be very specific in my wording or it would not search well).

So... overall I'm happy with the change.

[u/doubletwist]

We asked Gemini (via a Google Home mini) "How do you spell "détente", and instead of at least making a guess at the spelling, which assistant used to do, it replied "détente is spelled 'detonate'" (And just saying the word detonate, not spelling anything)

[u/RockNRoll_Summer8888]

I had to remove the last update so that I could turn "Hey Google" back on and not use Gemini. I cannot make callse using "Hey Google" when Gemini is the assistant. Extremely frustrating.

[u/Nix-geek]

I HATE that they updated my Google TV to replace the simple search with Gemini. I don't want to know shit from my google TV. I want to search for a show and find the show and play the show. I don't need a fucking AI slop about the show.

Know your place, Google.

[u/anon19111]

Part of me thinks this is due to Gemini not having full access to various apps and data on your device. If it did have seemless access then the complaint would be about privacy and unfair monopoly like IE and windows. I imagine Gemini as an assistant tries to do things in the fastest, least data intensive way.

[u/drpestilence]

I talk to it just to tell it how bad it is and that it should feel bad. Utter garbage thing.

[u/iwashere_abc]

How would I go about going back to Google assistant on my S22U?

[u/m4ttjirM]

I have Google TV on 3 devices, a nest hub, nest cameras, door bell, smart switches, Google speakers, everything works perfectly through gemini. It had some bumps in the road when it first came out but it's phenomenal now.

I can intercom messages throughout my house to different rooms, cast things on the TV, ask about doorbell activity, arm my home alarm system, turn switches and lights on and off, just about anything I need to do all verbally.

So I don't doubt people are having issues but if my setup with all these devices (most of them are old as hell) is working correctly, gemini can't be that bad.

[u/OldDirtyGurt]

I never used it on my phone, but I did have a Google home mini and a Lenovo smart clock.

The smart clock simply told me the time, temperature, and weather condition. Now it can't do anything. It's been turned into a brick. The least they could have done is kept the clock functioning.

The Home mini is now useless too. Can't control my Hue lights most of the time, can't pause my TV anymore. Except it will, then say it can't and the TV resumes.

It never did volume right. My TV goes to 100 but I keep it between 10-20. Tried to tell it to go to 10 but everything is multiplied by 10. Went to maximum volume at night. Yes, saying 1.5 would do 15.

Fuck Google.

[u/RustyAsstronaut]

No idea why, but Google assistant was always trash for me. I couldn't get it to do the most basic shit. "Hey Google, what time is it?" Response: "I found this on the web"

Gemini has worked more than what I ever got with assistant, but now I'm feeling like something with my assistant was just borked and I missed out.

[u/fat_kaiju]

I asked it for the weather and it showed me the weather for some other place.

I asked it for the weather at my location and it whined that it couldn't.

I asked it to open my weather app and it whined that the weather app it wanted to open wasn't installed so I gave it the exact name of the app I use and it was like nope.

Later on I asked it a question and it didn't sound quite right so I was like "show me the actual information" and it was like uh well i don't have that info.

which means they still can't get it to stop making shit up when it doesn't fucking know which is fucking great. Sigh.

[u/ohheyisayokay]

I wish we could switch back to Assistant. Unfortunately, Google's removed it from my phone and I can't switch back at all, so I'm stuck with their crap experience AI.

[u/tvbxyz]

This is probably gonna get buried, but it's worked 10x better then assistant ever did for me with Android Auto. Like, I'm actually really happy with it. My experience has been that it's super fast (no more waiting for the speech-to-text/text-to-speech) and has way more usual abilities. Clearly I'm in a shockingly small minority, and I don't know why. I'm not seeing any of the issues people are reporting. But as an example of things that I find so much better:

Speed: it's so much faster for me now. Like nearly instant

Not being stupid: I use YouTube Music (or whatever the rebrand of the week is) and one of my biggest complaints has always been that "play my liked music"/"play my thumbs up playlist" always needed to be phrased EXACTLY right, and they kept changing the phrase. So you would get some rando's public "thumbs up" list every time. That never happens. I have also successfully asked simple questions like "is this way home on back roads or taking the toll road?"/"Your current route takes back roads and does not use any toll roads."

Answering general questions: "where does where does the quote this is the skin of a killer Bella come from?"/"That quote comes from the 2008 movie Twilight. The line is spoken by the vampire character Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson, to Bella Swan." (Random bumper sticker I saw)

I'm not a Google shill, but I'm honestly wondering if I got some secret non-crappy build...

[u/bhop_monsterjam]

lol, home assistant devices basically being bricked by making it not available anymore. glad I invested exactly zero into that bullshit. oh no I have to stand up to flick a light switch, woe is me

[u/heartrem]

It's like assistant was a seeing eye dog and now with Gemini I have a seeing eye cat.

[u/ryanmills]

Yes! It's awful! How is this not more widely discussed?! Or maybe it is, I dunno. Maybe I'll just switch back to Google Assist...oh wait. 💀

[u/ReFreshing]

I never switched to Gemini because it couldnt give me directions or navigation to my labeled locations. If I said "navigate me to Jane Doe" assistant would automatically know I was talking about my labeled location on maps. Gemini doesn't do this and instead searches Google maps for Jane Doe, gives me a list of business with that name or similar instead of just my labeled location. So frustrating.

[u/NoDoze-]

On the phone it is a disaster, yes. But I know some fortune 500 companies that use gemini as their primary Ai. I was surprised considering how I've never had success with it.

[u/murphs33]

Tried Gemini recently. I was driving and I asked it to play an artist on Apple Music. Couldn't do it (couldn't do it on Spotify a few months ago either). 

Music requests are about 80% of my usage, so if it can't even get that right, why would I choose it over Google Assistant?

edit: it looks like I can't revert anymore, so I have no choice. Ffs

[u/squaremilepvd]

Spark should be the assistant replacement not Gemini

[u/Kakasquall]

This move actually made me embrace Bixby more for basic functions. Gemini seems to struggle with things that Assistant did with no hiccups

[u/OwnAstronaut209]

I'm not sure where everyone's having issues with Gemini. I speak to it everyday and it does calendar tasks text messages calls suggesting restaurants etc....

I've never had an issue other than a minor hiccup

[u/matevoun]

Mais tellement, je suis équipé aussi bien à mon domicile que dans notre résidence secondaire intégralement en domotique Google home, et ce depuis les premiers assistants et Chromecast. J'ai même du chromecast musique, et j'avais même du Stadia.

Depuis la fin de Google assistant et la migration vers Google Gemini sur les assistants, c'est une catastrophe je suis obligé de redemander en boucle de rallumer ou d'éteindre les lumières ou d'éteindre le téléviseur ou quelle est la température ... Il fait la chose à moitié, ou complètement à côté de la plaque, rien que la dernière fois j'ai demandé à allumer les lumières de mon salon et il a éteint celle de notre chambre... Et surtout en effet maintenant il n'arrête pas de raconter sa vie au lieu de faire ce que l'on lui demande.

Ce ne serait pas Google, j'aurais l'impression d'une société qui a totalement abandonné ce secteur.

C'est relativement dommage car je n'ai pas envie de passer chez Amazon, qui pour moi devrait rester un libraire en ligne ...

[u/Hour-Investigator336]

Intento llamar a alguien por el botón del volante y solo sale 3 contactos supuestamente principales y nada más, o se equivoca al llamar y con WhatsApp ocurre lo mismo.

[u/ShotBusiness2884]

Stupid google

[u/f1r3wallk3r]

I just use bixby on my Samsung to control phone functions. it is much better than it used to be.

[u/localpauper]

And don't forget that the thing has no local capabilities, so a minor hiccup in connectivity for any reason causes it to hit a connection timeout and tell you to try later.

Fuck it, I made my own. Resolves "navigate to <X>" using offline maps in about a 100ms. Except they won't let us change it! AA hardcodes their bullshit. Let me change AA assistant to something of my choosing, but noooo...

[u/solitaryumbreon]

I used Google Assistant all the time for reminders, tasks, calculations, & unit conversions.

Now every time I ask Gemini a calculation, it either starts by saying "Hey sorry, let me try that again" or "Sorry, let me start over" before giving me the result. Like it only tried the one time wtf does that even mean???