Google has released its AI assistant, Gemini Live, and is positioning it to replace Google Assistant on mobile. Gemini Live is rolling out on Android to subscribers of Gemini Advanced, which is part of the $20 monthly Google One AI Premium plan. Those consumers who purchase the new Pixel 9 Pro — which begins shipping this week — will get the assistant as part of a year of free access to Gemini Advanced, a $240 value, according to the company. Google claims that Gemini Live technology enables natural, flowing conversations with the AI assistant, putting “a sidekick in your pocket.”

Google is making Gemini Live its default interactive agent, “replacing Google Assistant with a smarter alternative that can be interrupted, is aware of your Google apps, and can even help answer questions about the contents of your screen,” writes ZDNet, noting that the rollout comes a mere three months after announcing the live AI assistant at Google I/O.

In a blog post, Google calls Gemini Live’s ability to seamlessly respond across apps and services something that sets it apart from other AI assistants. ZDNet describes it as “a direct competitor to GPT-4o’s new and improved Voice Mode, which has the same conversational and multimodal capabilities.”

By way of comparison, “OpenAI only began offering its advanced Voice Mode last month to a small group of people with subscriptions to ChatGPT Plus, which also costs $20 per month,” reports PCMag.

Google is making 10 new voices available to choose from with the introduction of Gemini Live, now offered on new Google Pixel smartphones as well as those from Samsung.

“Rick Osterloh, senior VP of Google devices and services, also teased that Gemini Live will be smart enough to conduct in-depth research and produce research reports,” PCMag adds, noting that such output “will be written in a Google Doc and include sources.”

Gizmodo observes that Gemini Live aims to “deliver on all the ways you wanted to interact with the Assistant but couldn’t,” letting you chat “as if it’s right in your ear.”

Gemini Live “can understand intent, follow a train of thought,” Gizmodo writes, adding that it “will even let you chat with it about life and track any ideas you might have.” By way of example, Google says it can be used to “brainstorm potential jobs” suited to a particular skill set.

“You can find specific information about a YouTube video you’re watching,” or “generate images directly from the overlay and drag and drop them into apps like Gmail and Google Messages,” Google writes in a blog post.

ZDNet says neither Google nor OpenAI have as yet made generative video or screen-sharing capabilities available via their mobile AI assistants.

PCMag writes that “the decision to paywall the voice-based chat features may disappoint users, but it suggests that Google and OpenAI are still working on ways to scale up the technology, iron out the bugs, and tackle potential legal issues before releasing the technology more widely.”

Both the wide release of Gemini Live and new AI-optimized Pixel 9 phones were announced last week at the Made by Google event.