ChatGPT Could Soon Replace Google Assistant On Your Android Phone

The hottest tech trend of 2023 will be generative artificial intelligence, led by chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT. There are many ways to use ChatGPT on your Android phone. The easiest way is to use OpenAI's official ChatGPT app for Android. After opening the app, all you have to do is type or dictate a question, then wait a few seconds for the chatbot to process it and respond. After years of using gestures or saying interesting words to Google Assistant, the need to manually launch the ChatGPT app to ask the chatbot a question seems outdated. Fortunately, OpenAI seems to be aware of this issue, as the code for the latest version of the ChatGPT Android app suggests that you can set it as your default helper app.

ChatGPT version 1.2023.352, released last month, added a new activity called com.openai.voice.assistant.AssistantActivity . This task is disabled by default, but after enabling it and starting it manually, an overlay appears on the screen with the same scrolling animation as when using voice chat mode in the app. This overlay appears on top of other apps and doesn't take up the entire screen like in-app voice chat mode. Therefore, you will be able to talk to ChatGPT from any screen by running this wizard.

But in my tests, the animation never finished and the task closed right before talking to the chatbot. This may be because the function is not ready or is not controlled by internal flags.

There are indications that the feature is not yet fully available, as the code needed for the app to appear as the "default digital assistant app" is only partially available. The latest version of the app adds an XML file called assistant_interaction_service that contains voice-interaction-service , which defines sessionService and recognitionService . The label also indicates that the service supportsAssist . This statement is one of the requirements that an app must meet in order to function as a "default digital assistant app." However, ChatGPT applications still lack the necessary instructions in their manifests that tell the system which "services" to connect to. If the service is not defined with appropriate metadata tags and attributes referencing the above XML, the ChatGPT application cannot be designated as the "default digital assistant application".

However, the fact that the aforementioned XML file exists suggests that this is indeed what OpenAI wants to do with its application. When the ChatGPT app becomes the default digital assistant app on Android, users will be able to access it by long-pressing the Home button (when using three-button navigation) or swiping up from the bottom corner (when using gesture navigation). Unfortunately, ChatGPT apps cannot yet create custom hotwords or respond to existing hotwords, as this functionality requires access to a privileged API that is only available to trusted pre-installed apps. However, given that Google Assistant will launch with Bard any day now, it makes sense that OpenAI would want to make it easier for Android users to access ChatGPT so that users don't flock to Bard just because it's easier to use.

Speaking of which, OpenAI seems to have another trick up its sleeve to make ChatGPT easier to use on Android. The latest version of the Android app also adds a Quick Settings tile, but it's currently disabled by default. The Quick Settings tile below appears to be a shortcut to launch ChatGPT's new Help mode, which is based on the app's code. The code also indicates that this feature requires a ChatGPT Plus subscription, although we were unable to enable Assistant tasks or Quick Settings tiles with an active subscription.

When OpenAI finally announces these features, we'll let you know. Would you use ChatGPT on Android more if you could access it as easily as Google Assistant?