ChatGPT, OpenAI’s chatbot, could soon arrive directly in your Android smartphone, replacing the already integrated personal assistant: Google Assistant.
If you want to use ChatGPT on your Android smartphone, you can already download the official ChatGPT app from the Play Store, or even go to the Open AI website from any browser.
However, using ChatGPT on your Android phone isn’t as convenient as using Google Assistant, which you can launch by making a gesture or saying a keyword. Fortunately, this may soon change, because OpenAI is presumably working on making ChatGPT the default assistant app on your Android phone.
Also read – ChatGPT: you can now talk to the AI and listen to its responses in the Android and iOS app
ChatGPT coming to Android soon
According to code found in the latest version of the ChatGPT app, OpenAI is developing a new feature that will allow you to invoke ChatGPT from any screen using a new activity called com.openai.voice.assistant.AssistantActivity. This activity will display a swirling animation on the screen, indicating that ChatGPT is listening to your request. This will make it easier to access ChatGPT without opening the app.
However, this feature is not ready yet, as it is disabled by default and does not work properly even when enabled manually. The code also shows that the ChatGPT app is missing some essential declarations that are required for an app to be set as the default digital assistant app on Android.
OpenAI appears to clearly intend to make ChatGPT the default assistant, as the code also reveals that the app has a new XML file named assistant_interaction_service that contains the necessary declarations for the voice interaction service. The functionality is therefore almost ready, but we do not know exactly when it will be available to everyone.
Once ChatGPT becomes the default assistant app, you will be able to Launch it by long-pressing the home button or swiping up from a bottom corner, depending on your browsing settings. However, you won’t be able to use custom or existing keywords to launch ChatGPT, as this requires access to special APIs that are only available to pre-installed apps.
The good news is that OpenAI also has another way to make ChatGPT easier to use on Android, by adding a Quick Settings tile that will act as a shortcut to launch ChatGPT’s wizard mode. The Quick Settings tile is also disabled by default at present and appears to require a ChatGPT Plus subscription.