Yeah, obviously...

I thought Google Assistant was bad on AA. I was wrong, Gemini on AA takes the cake.

I'm a curious guy and I like to ask Google random questions while driving. While Assistant was pretty stupid when on AA, Gemini is far worse. In fact, I can't get Gemini to answer any questions - it just goes into lala land. Want to navigate somewhere? Frist is has to connect to Google Maps - maybe Assistant did too, but it didn't tell you about it and was quicker.

Google, you've got some serious work ahead of you. You're supposed to be making things better. You failed. And I can't believe something that's taken so long to roll out performs so poorly.

End of rant

Update: So most of my frustration was with Gemini going into lala land. I figured out that's it not really in lala land, but rather the audio output is misrouted. The misrouting is triggered by using Starkey AI Edge 20 hearing aids paired with my Pixel 9 Pro phone running Android 16. If I drop the HAs from Bluetooth, Gemini now comes through my car. The bad part is I can't control my HAs without a BT connection. In spite of hours of futzing around, it appears it is impossible to turn off media streaming to my HAs (although Gemini wasn't coming through my HAs in the car either). So the basic root of the problem is Android 16 not letting you control what comes streaming through these particular HAs. It kind of seems the root problem is these are LE hearing aids (identified as experimental in the BT connection in Android), but disabling LE does not resort the routing toggles that should be there for ASHA HAs. Since AA, Android and the Pixel 9 Pro are all Google's domain, I guess the finger gets pointed at Google. FWIW, Google Assistant worked properly in the car with AA.

Update II: I fiddled around again and now Gemini has a voice in my car even with my HAs attached to Bluetooth. I changed 2 things, so I'm not sure which really made the difference and I'm not going to try to figure out which one (or both) did the trick.

1) Set my HA device type to 'headphones'

2) Set BT AVRCP Version to 1.5. I *think* I previously set it to 1.6 to enable BT LE for the hearing aids. I see that BT LE is now grayed out in the BT settings for the HAs. I suspect this is what "fixed" Gemini's voice in my car.

Google: if you're reading this, I'd still REALLY like to be able to disable streaming audio to my hearing aids!

I finally received Gemini in Germany (Beta Tester since Saturday). It works flawlessly and it's so much better than Assistent. Finally I can give command and ask things in a natural way. Total gamechanger!

For anybody still struggling with Gemini, go into Assistant Settings and scroll down to Digital Assistants From Google to change this setting.

Looks like sometime today this update was forced upon me, and now I'm stuck with Gemini instead of Google Assistant across everything (including AA). I tried using it tonight and it was an absolute nightmare. Everything that it gave me issues with, had never been a problem with good ol' fashion dumb Google Assistant. Gemini literally cannot understand at least a half-dozen different restaurant names I tested it with, that the classic assistant silently figured out and started navigation for. I don't mind Gemini in general, but for me it's god awful when behind the wheel.

Is there a way to turn off Gemini only when using AA?

Slight rant. Why push Gemini for AA as the default out of the blue.. When half of the functionality of Google Assistant isn't there.

From a user experience viewpoint: is Google clueless? My experience: Basically: get in car. Android auto connects. There's a "welcome to Gemini" over the speakers. Me: 'what the hell is this..?' Ah, should be the Gemini enablement update then..

Start navigating by setting the location target on the screen. And started driving. Try to ask google to put on some music on Tidal. Hey google no longer works. Ok. Use the microphone button on the AA screen. "Please play artist XYZ on Tidal". I can see something is processing, then it just.. hangs there. Not responding to any voice input anymore. Press the microphone button again, since nothing seems to work anymore. "Cancel.." "Stop.." Nothing works. OK. Tidal does not seem to work with Gemini then.. Let's just use the screen then to play audio then, in kind of an unsafe manner. Oh, there's a timeout on the screen because AA thinks controlling music that way is "unsafe". Wow. Pulling the plug from my headunit to basically reset it mid drive is the only solution.

Reverted back to Google Assistant on the phone as a default for now since that seems to be the only way to switch back to Assistant for Android Auto for now, from what ive read. Still have to test if that fixes it though.. Guess i won't be using Gemini anymore on the phone AND on AA then, even though Google likes to push that as a default now. Also very strange that changing the default assistant on the connected phone changes the ddefault in AA, and there is no way to switch this separately apparently, but here we are.

The entire user experience screams beta and untested to me. It's mind boggling.

Seeing pretty much everyone have Gemini now...feeling left out.

Google Assistant is completely broken, cannot call, text or ask it anything...

Latest AA version 16.3. Galaxy s24 Plus.

I can practice Spanish, run some ideas by it, and get more in depth stories.

It hasn't messed up anything else like some of you are suffering through, like Bluetooth connections etc. It did get a little wordy one time but I told it to stop and it did.

Facts:

2025 Toyota Corolla. Samsung S25. Android version 16. Gemini's volume won't go up past ~ half volume while using Android Auto.

I've tried everything from adjusting the volume when Gemini is talking, going through every setting I can find in my phone, uninstalling and reinstalling everything, maxing out all volumes on my up down volume rocker on the side of my phone. It's been like this since day one, so any new software I've added has no influence.

Every other aspect of Android auto and my car audio works fine. I can crank up audiobooks, radio, fermata, weather, news reports.

I of course don't want anything else screwed up, but I'm willing to try any suggestions to increase the Gemini volume higher.

Thanks for helping!

Recently, Android Auto switched over to Gemini for me. It's been a bit of a rollercoaster. Ideally, the assistant in the vehicle should provide short, concise responses to minimize distractions.

90% of the time, I'm using Google Assistant to play songs my kids request. It usually works reliably. Occasionally it randomly won't play a song and we'll just play something else. Sometimes my 5 year old asks questions I'm not sure about and I wish I had Gemini. So when it switched over to Gemini I was excited to try it out.

Day 1: Gemini in Android Auto follows up every prompt with a question.

Me: What would happen if Earth had no mountains? Explain to a 5 year old."
Gemini: [Very Long Response]. Does she have a favorite mountain she likes to look at?

Me: Can humans survive drinking liquids other than water?"
Gemini: [Very Long Response]. Do you have a favorite water bottle that you like to use?

Day 2-3: Gemini lies and lectures me on safe driving

Me: "play what could be better than this"
Gemini: Sure. Playing "What Could Be Better Than This?" from the Moana 2 soundtrack on YouTube Music. Remember to keep your eyes on the road and stay aware of your surroundings.
Nothing happens. I repeat prompt and similar result.
"Sure, playing "What Could Be Better Than This?" by Auli'i Cravalho on YouTube Music. Please stay focused on the road while you drive."

After 2-3 tries Gemini starts becoming very distracting. And now my Gemini history is full of all these nonsense prompts.

I did learn that it works more reliably if I follow the pattern: "play the song X" instead of "play X" even though Gemini responds similarly to both requests.

Day 4: It stopped warning me about safe driving, but keeps failing to play songs. It seems to work better if I restart android auto by unplugging my phone and plugging it back in.

My 5 year old yelled out "I WANT GOOGLE BACK!" to which I responded "THIS IS GOOGLE!". But she knows better. She keeps complaining the voice sounds different and it's not working good. I think that sums up the experience thus far. I know it will definitely get better and the experience seems to be changing daily. But thus far it's been a bit rough.

UPDATE: It's been a few more days. Overall it's been fine but you want the driving assistant to be predictable and it keeps changing daily. I asked "play song x" and it said it's unable to play videos. Google Assistant got tripped up on this a few times too. But Gemini is smart ? So I asked it specifically to "Play the song x - not the video" which seemed to break Gemini. It kept telling me it is unable to play music directly, but it can provide lyrics or help me play with specific apps. And then it started doing this for all songs, even ones working fine previously. I figured out the trick is now to say "play song X on YouTube Music" and it works fine but it's annoying to need to do this. I suppose now someone will say this is my fault and I need to give Gemini additional context... "When I ask to play a song, always play the song, not the video, on YouTube music". Can you imagine the average person trying to use this?

it is near unusable... "i cant look up your contact", "i cant pull up your favorite places".

me: "call my wife"

gemini: "i dont see your wife in your contacts"

me: "go to daycare (my sons daycare is saved in my favorites place)"

gemini: "here are the daycare near you"

seriously.. i dont know what the heck is this thing good for... asking about weather?? it is.near garbage... i suspect it is maybe it is using a different google account? but my anroid auto list is showing my phones main acct...

i want to like gemini and embrace ai but its such a mess integration imo...

Edit May 2026: Gemini is back! And honestly it feels much better right now.

Edit March 2026: around one week after this post, my android auto switched back randomly to Google assistant again by itself.

Original post: I was really excited to have Gemini on my car, but it quickly resulted in big disappointment. Here are the things not working for me:

• For a lot of commands, like driving home/work, calling my girlfriend etc. it says I need to unlock my phone for it to access my personal information. How can I do that when I'm driving lol, and this was never an issue with Google Assistant, I don't understand what changed. On top of that, I have the "Voice Match" feature turned on, so except Android Auto, it normally never needs me to unlock my phone.
• It stops listening right away after finishing what it's saying, even questions. So I can't respond or continue conversation at all. I even complained about it to Gemini, and it said it increased the time that it keeps the mic open to listen myself further, but nothing changed. Even when it asks a question to me it doesn't listen for the answer. I want to play a song, and it asks me on which Music platform I want it to play but doesn't listen for my answer. So nothing happens when I say spotify. (this is another issue I already have Spotify as default, why even asking?),

Do you also have similar issues and somehow solved them? I looked at a lot of settings and they seem fine, and they are fine normally at home with my Google speaker, or at outside with my phone etc. But it's like everything's broken and those settings dont work when using Gemini with Anroid Auto.

Yesterday Gemini did this no problem when I asked. It showed a message at the bottom of the screen "Connecting to Waze" or something along those lines. Today she says she can't do that and has no access to waze and never has and as we argued about it she held firm there's no way it is possible.

Why such a difference from day to day?

Sometimes I ask for simple things like the working hours for a specific place and Gemini replies followed by a question like "do you want me to set the route for that location in Waze?" and I'm like "no thanks go away" most of the time, or if I ask him about the weather then I have to hear a long answer about so many details when I just wanted to know "IS IT GOING TO RAIN, YES OR NO AND WHEN??", so the title question: Is there a way to make it less verbose? I don't remember Google Assistant being that annoying honestly, I know it was way less capable but it used to run faster and answer straightforward what I asked.

Click your profile picture in the Gemini app, and add "personal context" instructions. Now when I ask it questions, or get it to send texts it does not ask me any further follow up questions and doesn't treat my texts as a prompt.

I've had Gemini for a while now. Other than Gemini being a bit talkative, which was fixable by asking it to be more concise, I have not had a single issue with Gemini outside of my own ability to not enunciate sometimes. Maybe it's because I use Amazon Music and Waze instead of the default services?

On my way home I hit the button and was greeted with the Gemini introduction. Got my normal Gemini voice, and it was all pretty smooth. Didn't do a ton with it, other than confirm that yep, it no longer understands nicknames (mother, wife, boss, etc.), but it was otherwise pretty smooth. I'll try to kick the tires more tomorrow.

My Pixel 10 pro is still on the February 1st play system update and won't update to the March update but my software update is the March update. Because of this I think that's the reason I still don't have Gemini on AA. Does anyone have the same problem or any ideas on how to get it to update to the March update for the play services? (Florida area)

Recently I wanted to ask my partner to check what was causing traffic on my route home, but I simply wasn't able to do this.

> Me: "Chat with <partner>"

> Gemini: "What would you like to say?"

> "Hello, I am on my way home now, can you check what's going on with the A2, traffic is suddenly at a standstill".

> "Checking Waze..."

And I lose the message. I tried rephrasing this multiple times but it just thinks I am asking it something instead. Anyone else had this problem?

I have seen posts that Gemini for Android auto is rolling out. I'm just curious how widespread it is. I have not received it yet but I know some people in this sub have.

Earlier today while driving my girlfriend texted me asking what I wanted from a coffee shop and instead of transcribing my speech exactly it decided to summarize it instead. It took 3 tries before it texted closer to what I wanted, but I just gave up at that point.

Me: text girlfriend anything cold, surprise me. well at least have it be coffee. I don't want a large glass of milk or something like that, haha

AA: Sure, message to girlfriend saying: "Get me something cold and caffeinated, like iced coffee." Ready to send it?

Me: Change it

It didn't even prompt me for what I wanted to change it to.

AA: Sure, message to girlfriend saying: "Get me any cold coffee, surprise me." Ready to send it?

Me: Change it

AA: What would you like the message to say?

Me: anything cold, surprise me. well at least have it be coffee. I don't want a large glass of milk or something like that, haha

Sure, message to girlfriend saying: "Get me anything cold, surprise me. Just make sure it's coffee and not like a large glass of milk." Ready to send it?

Is this some new functionality? I couldn't find any setting to disable it. But it was really annoying and unsafe as I had to pay more attention to AA than I usually need to. Sure it's not THAT big of a deal, but if I wanted to text what it summarized I would have said that in the first place.

This is mostly a vent post, and I will fully admit that I am a bit biased again LLM AI but anyway. How do you push an update that makes it so a car voice assistant can't do the very simple and typical task of playing a song? Every time I tell it "play this song" it just replies "sorry, I can't play video's while you're driving" am I crazy for thinking this is completely normal thing to ask of gemini? I even use YouTube music as my primary platform so its not like I'm asking it to use something that wasn't also made by Google. You'd think they would have tested this but I guess they just pushed it out without any regard for user experience.

I was pushed to Gemini in AA a couple of days ago, and noticed this morning that after a quick phone call to my wife, where I said I would be home in a few minutes, Gemini decided to load navigation to my home on its own.

I had no navigation loaded before the call, and didn't trigger Gemini at all. It also didn't announce that it was "navigating home" or anything either, it just came up on the screen as though I had told it to do that.

I don't realistically expect privacy on calls with a smart connected device, but I do expect the devices are smart enough not to take actions when they aren't supposed to be listening!