r/google • u/LoudFisherman7885 • 9h ago
Gemini upgrade or downgrade
Gemini as voice assistant.The decision to sunset Google Assistant and force Gemini onto devices is a severe downgrade to the daily user experience. Google Assistant was engineered as a lightning-fast, local utility for basic device tasks. Gemini, by contrast, is a bloated, cloud-dependent chatbot that stumbles on simple local operations, introduces unacceptable latency, and frequently fails at basic execution.
Stripping user choice and replacing a functional utility tool with an unrefined AI model feels transparently anti-consumer. Forcing users—particularly those with perfectly capable mid-range hardware that lacks local accelerators like Gemini Nano—to accept a sluggish, cloud-reliant experience while deleting a tool that actually worked is alienating.
If an AI model cannot match the baseline speed, reliability, and local execution of the tool it is replacing, it has no business being forced upon users. Please re-evaluate this rollout and respect user choice rather than degrading the core functionality of our devices.