If your phone runs Android, the voice behind "Hey Google" is changing, and Malaysia is one of the places most ready for it. Google has started switching off Google Assistant and putting Gemini, its AI chatbot, in its place. The change began on 4 September, and once it reaches your device there is no way to switch back.
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What is happening
- From 4 September, Gemini progressively replaces Google Assistant on Android phones, tablets, Wear OS watches, paired headphones and Android Auto.
- The rollout runs over several weeks, so two people with the same phone can lose Assistant on different days.
- Cars with "Google built-in", and some older or unsupported devices, keep Assistant for now.
- After the switch, "Hey Google" and a long press of the power button open Gemini.
Google confirmed the plan in emails to users, first reported in early August, and began the rollout on 4 September, as covered by The Decoder. Gemini is also arriving on Google TV, Google Home speakers and smart displays, which makes this less a single app update than a change of the assistant that sits across Google's devices.
Why Malaysia meets Gemini differently
Most markets are being introduced to Gemini as a stranger. Malaysia is not. In Google's first Southeast Asia report on the app, published in July, Malaysia ranked first in the region for making images with Gemini, and among the app's users here, one in five ask it to generate images, the highest share in Southeast Asia. Google also found Gemini was the most searched AI assistant in the country, and that its Southeast Asian user base more than doubled in a year. The figures come from Google's own Gemini Southeast Asia report.
That matters because the tool Google is now pushing onto phones here is already the one many Malaysians reach for by choice. The friction other countries will feel, learning an assistant they did not ask for, is smaller in a market that has spent the past year turning "Nano Banana", the local nickname for Gemini's image tool, into a habit.
What you gain, and what you lose
Gemini is a different tool from the one it replaces. Assistant was built to run commands: set a timer, play a song, toggle a light. Gemini answers in conversation and can handle longer, less exact requests, but some of Assistant's quick, dependable routines behave differently or need setting up again. It is worth checking that any Assistant habit you rely on still works once the switch lands on your phone.
Arriving with it is Google's September update for Android, which adds a few genuinely useful things. Motion Assist puts moving cues on screen to reduce motion sickness while you are a passenger in a moving vehicle, a real help on a long Grab ride or an intercity bus. Gemini Live Guided Vision describes surroundings aloud and helps line up a shot in poor light or for fine print, and Google Messages gains shared Keep lists and custom chat themes. The update is detailed by 9to5Google and Android Authority.
Part of a bigger push
Retiring Assistant is one piece of Google putting Gemini at the centre of everything it makes, from search to hardware. It is the same direction we saw when Google reworked how its search results surface publishers. Malaysia's appetite for these tools is not accidental either: the government is pushing its own AI adoption, including free AI access for 100,000 young Malaysians.
For now the practical steps are small. Watch for the update to reach your phone, expect "Hey Google" to open Gemini afterwards, and test anything you counted on Assistant to do. Google has not named a date for when the last Malaysian phone loses Assistant, only that once it goes, it does not come back.
Images courtesy of Daniel Romero, Vitaly Gariev and Frankie Cordoba on Unsplash.
