You Can Now Use ChatGPT As Your Default Android Assistant

The pace of AI development doesn't seem to be slowing down, and we're seeing a flurry of updates for the big apps and models every week. One of the most recent of those updates makes it easier to integrate ChatGPT into Android: You can now set it as the default digital assistant on your phone or tablet.

As spotted by Android Authority, you need to have the beta version of ChatGPT for Android installed for this to work at the moment, though the feature will no doubt roll out to everyone in due course. If you'd rather have ChatGPT answering your questions about life, the universe, and everything, this makes it easier to access.

To access the beta for ChatGPT, you need to have ChatGPT for Android installed already. Then, open the Play Store on Android, tap your profile picture (top right), and choose Manage apps and device > Manage. Select ChatGPT to see its full listing page, and you should then see a Join the beta box you can tap Join in.

The usual rules for betas apply: You get access to the newest features first, but you might also see more bugs along the way. After a few minutes, once you've been registered as a ChatGPT beta tester, you'll see an update appear for the app and you can then dive in.

To change the default assistant to ChatGPT or any other app on Android, open Settings and Apps: You can then tap Default apps (on Pixels) or Choose default apps (on Galaxy phones) to find the Digital assistant app option. On the next screen, tap Digital assistant app again to make your choice.

Using ChatGPT as your default assistant

Changing the assistant setting on a Galaxy phone. Credit: Lifehacker

Changing this setting doesn't give ChatGPT any more capabilities—it just means the AI bot can be launched in the same ways you would normally launch Gemini. That can be with a long press on the power button or a swipe up from the bottom-right corner of the screen, depending on how your device is configured, though there's no "hey ChatGPT" voice shortcut you can use.

This will work for all ChatGPT users, whether you've subscribed to a paid plan or not, though the features and underlying AI models you get once you've launched ChatGPT will depend on your subscription level. The bot appears on screen as a floating blue circle and goes into the Gemini Live voice mode that's now available to everyone, so you can have a two-way spoken conversation with it.

Bear in mind the limitations of ChatGPT as a digital assistant at the moment: It doesn't have anywhere near the same feature set as Google Gemini when it comes to getting its hooks into Android and your other apps. You can't use ChatGPT to set timers or add events to your Google Calendar, for example, and you can't queue up songs in Spotify.

On the other hand, you can have a chat about almost every topic imaginable (watch out for hallucinations), and get information that's available on the web—such as the latest sports scores or the local weather forecast for your part of the world. You can get ChatGPT to invent text, create images, and everything else the chatbot is capable of.

No doubt more improvements are on the way before OpenAI rolls this option into the stable ChatGPT app. It's an interesting contrast to the iPhone: It seems unlikely that Apple will ever allow an alternative app to take Siri's spot as the default assistant, even if you can now access ChatGPT through Siri.