Fast Company’s Jared Newman said that the shift to large language models to interpret questions and generate answers more conversationally has drawbacks.

He said that "tossing out Assistant is a mistake" because "too often, Gemini fails at performing basic tasks, and it will cause lots of frustration for folks who depend on their phone's voice control features."

Despite Google's claims that Gemini can handle many of the same instructions as an Assistant, Newman's experience suggests otherwise.

He said Gemini provides less helpful information for local business queries than Google Assistant, lacking context and formatting.

Unlike Google Assistant, Gemini cannot take voice notes or save them in an app like Google Keep.

It does not support adding items to to-do lists, a feature that Google Assistant handles efficiently.

Gemini struggles with weather forecasts, often giving incorrect locations, unlike Google Assistant which works reliably.

Gemini fails to provide direct turn-by-turn navigation, only offering a preview, whereas Google Assistant launches navigation immediately.

It only supports YouTube Music, unlike Google Assistant which supports multiple streaming services.

Gemini cannot directly access streaming apps for movies or shows, only suggesting content with no direct links.

It also can search for photos in Google Photos, a task that Google Assistant can easily handle.

Gemini fails to play or provide recent news effectively, unlike Google Assistant's useful daily news briefing feature.

It cannot support the automation of multiple actions through Routines, a feature present in Google Assistant.

Because of its dependence on AI systems, responses from Gemini are slower by a second or two compared to Google Assistant when answering queries.

Newman concludes that while Google is eager to showcase Gemini as an answer to OpenAI's ChatGPT, the new assistant's shortcomings may lead to significant frustration for users who rely on voice control features.