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Hey Android users, are you tired of Google’s neglect of Google Assistant? Well, one of Google’s biggest rivals, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is apparently coming for the premium phone space occupied by Google’s voice assistant. Android Authority’s Mishaal Rahman discovered that the ChatGPT app is working on supporting Android’s voice assistant APIs and a system-wide overlay UI. If the company rolls out this feature, users could set the ChatGPT app as a system-wide assistant app, allowing it to appear anywhere in Android and answer user questions. ChatGPT started as a text-only generative AI, but received voice and image typing capabilities in September.
Usually this is the system-wide Google Assistant available in Android, but this is not a special Google home kitchen: everything happens through public APIs to which technically any app can to log in. You can only enable one app as the “default Assistant app” system-wide, and beyond the initial setting, the user must always change it manually. The Assistant APIs are designed to be powerful, allowing parts of the app to run 24/7, no matter where you are. Being the default Assistant app allows launching the app via power button or gesture, and the helper app can read the current text and images from the screen for processing.
Ron Amédéo
If an Android manufacturer signed a deal with ChatGPT and included it as a bundled system app, ChatGPT could even use a permanent voice keyword, where saying something like “Hey, ChatGPT” would launch the app even when the screen is off. However, system apps get more permissions than normal apps, and an always-on keyword is locked behind these system app permissions, so ChatGPT should sign a distribution deal with an Android manufacturer. Given ChatGPT’s red-hot popularity, I’m sure a few would sign up if it were offered.
Rahman discovered that ChatGPT version 1.2023.352, released last month, included a new activity named “com.openai.voice.assistant.AssistantActivity.” He managed to enable the normally disabled feature which revealed ChatGPT’s new overlay API. This is the usual semi-transparent spinning orb UI that voice assistants use, although Rahman has yet to get it to respond to a voice command. This is all half-broken and under development, so it may never see a final release, but companies usually release the features they’re working on.
Of course, the problem with any of these third-party voice assistant apps replacing Google Assistant is that they don’t run a serious app ecosystem. As with Bixby and Alexa, there aren’t any good apps for housing your notes, reminders, calendar entries, shopping list items, or any other input-based functions you might want to use. However, as a replacement for Google Search, where you ask it a question and get an answer, it would probably be a decent alternative.
Google has neglected Google Assistant for years, but with the rise of generative AI, it’s working to redesign the Assistant with some Google Bard intelligence. He’s also reportedly working on another assistant, “Pixie,” which will apparently launch with the Pixel 9, but that will be towards the end of 2024.
