Google confirms Gemini will fully replace Assistant on phones in 2026

Google’s massive project to swap out the trusty old Google Assistant for its smarter AI successor, Gemini, is hitting a slight delay. The transition is definitely still happening, but it won’t be wrapped up this year as originally promised. Instead, the company has confirmed that the rollout will stretch into 2026, giving us all a little more time with the legacy Assistant while they iron out the kinks in the new experience.

Back in the spring, Google laid out a bold vision to completely overhaul how we use our smartphones.

The plan was to move away from a traditional voice assistant that just follows commands to an AI capable of real reasoning and deep contextual understanding. The original announcement in March suggested we would see a rapid “upgrade” to Gemini on mobile, with the old Assistant disappearing from newer Android phones and app stores over the following months.

But Gemini coming to mobile is way more than just a simple rebrand. Google views this as a fundamental shift toward personalized, AI-powered help that understands natural conversation and can actually interact with the other apps on your phone. It’s built on the latest generative AI tech, allowing for features like free-flowing chats in Gemini Live and the ability to give complex, researched answers – things the old Assistant just couldn’t handle.

Despite these big ambitions and some early launches on Wear OS watches and Android Auto, Google is tapping the brakes. They want to make sure the switch is genuinely “seamless” before they retire Assistant for good. A quiet update to their support pages clarified that moving mobile users over to Gemini is now a process that will continue through 2026, rather than finishing in 2025. The timeline for other platforms like cars is likely on a similar slow track.

For anyone with an Android phone, this means you aren’t losing the Assistant you know overnight.

You can still rely on it for the basics like setting timers, making calls, or answering quick questions. If you are eager, you can manually download the Gemini app to try out the new features now. Eventually, Gemini will take over as the default, handling those daily tasks while also pulling in data from across your apps for much smarter help.

This delay basically shows Google is playing it safe with a massive change. Replacing a system that has been the backbone of Android for nearly ten years isn’t easy. It requires rigorous testing and slow improvements to work across billions of devices without breaking anything.

Google’s end game remains the same: phase out Assistant and bake Gemini into everything – tablets, headphones, smart home gear, and cars. We will likely see this transition get a lot more aggressive in the first half of 2026 as Gemini gets smarter and integrates deeper into the Google ecosystem.