Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority
TL;DR
- The latest ChatGPT beta now lets you set ChatGPT as the default assistant on Android.
- This will let you invoke ChatGPT with buttons and gestures.
- Invoking ChatGPT through this launches the assistant’s voice mode.
Thanks to Android’s open nature, there is no dearth of digital assistants on Android flagships. However, one limitation many of these digital assistants face is that they cannot be set as the default assistant app on Android. So, when comparing Google’s Gemini to ChatGPT on Android, Gemini has an advantage in that users can easily trigger the digital assistant. This is changing, as you can now set ChatGPT as the default assistant app on Android.
With its v1.2025.070 beta on Android, users can now set ChatGPT as their device’s default assistant app. This lets them trigger ChatGPT using all the buttons and gestures they previously used to trigger Gemini.
Setting ChatGPT as Android’s default digital assistant app enables users to launch it by long-pressing the home button (if using three-button navigation) or swiping up from the bottom corner (if using gesture navigation). You can also long-press the power button to launch it if you have that setting enabled. Invoking ChatGPT this way launches its voice mode, which some would say is fairly limited in functionality compared to what others, like Perplexity AI, can achieve on Android.
If you were hoping to launch ChatGPT with a custom hotword, you’d still be disappointed. Even after setting it as the default assistant, ChatGPT cannot be invoked with a hotword, as that functionality requires access to privileged APIs only available to trusted, preinstalled apps.
Still, this should come as good news for all ChatGPT fans on Android, as they can now use it with much more ease.
