Android owners can easily swap Gemini for ChatGPT as default assistant, here's how

If you’re sick of talking to Gemini on your Android phone (or angry about the end of Google Assistant), then you do have choices.

While using other voice assistants on Android has long been an option, now you can make ChatGPT the default voice assistant on your Android phone.

Just a few days ago, Google announced that it was moving everyone on from Google Assistant, and over the next few months, all users will be “upgraded” to Gemini. On top of that, the classic Google Assistant will be retired and later in 2025 will cease to be available.

But in the latest beta of ChatGPT on Android, you can now set the headline-grabbing AI agent as your default assistant app.

The process is easy. Once you’ve installed the beta, just search your Android phone’s settings for “default apps” where you can choose the “default digital assistant”.

You’ll be able to select ChatGPT here, which will also work with hardware triggers on your phone. That means that if you launch your assistant with a swipe, or with a button press of some form (usually totally customisable), you’ll get ChatGPT to launch.

What you can’t do – according to Android Authority, which brings us the details – is launch ChatGPT with a hotword, so it’s still going to be a manual process.

Whether you want to make this switch of course, depends on what you use your voice assistant for. ChatGPT will give you conversational AI, in a similar way to Gemini Advanced. However, what you won’t be able to do is use it to control your phone in the way that Google Assistant did.

When Google Assistant launched in 2016, much of the fun evolved around telling Google to launch apps, play music or adjust a setting on your device. Gemini has taken its time to offer some of these features (although I still don’t think it’s comparable with old Google Assistant), while ChatGPT isn’t really designed for that purpose.

This new beta function for ChatGPT will help you get to your favourite AI faster, but if you’re looking to control your phone, you might have to stick to Gemini and hope that updates come thick and fast to give you those handsfree controls.