The beauty of Android is that you may customize the OS to your liking. So, while thebest Android phonesship withGoogle Assistantas the default voice assistant, you can switch to Bixby or Alexa as your preferred assistant. With ChatGPT being all the rage right now, you might want to replace Google’s assistant with OpenAI’s chatbot. This might become a reality soon, as the developers behind ChatGPT’s Android app are seemingly working on an option to set it as the default assistant app.
Android expert Mishaal Rahman did an APK teardown of ChatGPT v1.2023.352 and found a new activity named “com.openai.voice.assistant.AssistantActivity.” While disabled for now, enabling the activity triggered a ChatGPT overlay with an animation similar to what appears when you use the voice chat mode in the app. This overlay does not take up the entire screen, just like when you invoke Google Assistant by long-pressing the power or home button.
The feature does not work properly though, indicating it is still a work in progress. TheAndroid Authorityreport also found an XML file “assistant_interaction_service” containing tags related to setting an app as the default digital assistant on Android. There’s seemingly a lot of work left on this front, so don’t expect to be able to set ChatGPT as the default assistant on your phone anytime soon.
All these changes point to OpenAI working on letting you set ChatGPT as the default voice assistant on your phone. Once the feature rolls out, you can invoke ChatGPT instead of Google Assistant by long-pressing the power button or swiping up from the screen’s bottom corner. However, you won’t be able to trigger the chatbot using a hotword, as Google does not provide access to this API to third-party apps.
OpenAI made ChatGPT with voice free for Android and iPhone users in November 2023. So, you can use the ChatGPT app on your phone to talk to the chatbot and ask all your doubts.
Additionally, OpenAI is working on a ChatGPT Quick Settings tile. While not active right now, the tile will seemingly allow you to launch ChatGPT’s assistant mode. This new feature will reportedly require a ChatGPT Plus subscription to work. The Quick Settings tile will be an excellent alternative for users who might not want to replace Google Assistant with ChatGPT but still want quick access to OpenAI’s chatbot.
There could be other improvements that OpenAI is working on for its ChatGPT mobile app. But some of them might be locked behind a Plus subscription, similar to howGoogle is working on a paid version of Bard. Nonetheless, the battle between AI chatbots is about to get much more intense, so expect them to improve by leaps and bounds in the coming months.
