this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2025
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I'm being serious with this comment. In no way have I felt like Google has forced Gemini on me. I barely notice it exists. Can anyone give me examples?
They’ve stuffed it into every page in Google cloud and workspace.
I tried it in sheets one time and it literally made up fake data for my analysis. Never trusting that again.
It "messaged" me in Google Messages today introducing itself and how it could summarize text messages on my phone for me
if a human sends me a text long enough to benefit from a summary that's a human that is being removed from my contacts.
Ah, I don't use most of Google's services, though I do use an Android device. I think my most used service is Drive. I haven't seen it on there.
I accidentally clicked on their stupid popup one time and then got emails over and over welcoming me to Gemini. I don't even have Google assistant installed.
Gemini 'messaged' me in google messages introducing itself a couple months ago. Just appeared like a normal text conversation with any other contact, but as soon as you click on it you're presented with a wall of T&Cs.
Deleted the 'conversation' and it's stayed gone; though there's an option for it in settings.
The only other place I've see it is an on-screen reminder every time I use Google Assistant. (usually just triggering home automatons)
That's why.
I don't use Google messages, don't use the Google Assistant... am barely aware that Gemini exists.
Same here.
My job uses the Google suite and it feels like it’s gotten a bit excessive recently. Just this week I have gotten multiple popups on my work email and in Docs and Sheets. It has been present in Chat for a few months.
Interesting. I don't use Gmail (unless I have to) or the Google office suite. Makes sense.
My power button on my phone now opens Gemini... Every damn time it's bumped. Press to wake the phone? Oh hello Gemini
Well that is annoying, but doesn't sound like the expected behaviour of the power button. A long press, maybe, but just pressing it shouldn't do that.
They "remind me" every time I use assistant on my phone with an on screen message. But that's about it and though I find it annoying I don't feel forced.
They remind me even when I don't use assistant. I sometimes wake my phone and it's the first screen I saw. I tried switching over and it sucks. Sometimes I say a voice command for something regarding google home (eg. Turn off the lights). Sometimes it correctly realized this is mean for Google home and will execute the command with Google home. Sometimes I get an error saying Gemini can't do that yet. This is with the same exact prompt. It's not idempotent.
I opted out when they first introduced it. So it's not in use on my phone and never has been. My smart home devices are all older so nothing with Gemini built in. This may be the difference for me. I dunno.
The main smart speaker I use is a Lenovo Smart Display and it hasn't received updates in years. It's got physical switches for the mic and camera and my smart home stuff is on a separate network from everything else in my house on purpose.
I think the newest speaker I own is the set of Google home max's and they don't even sell those anymore. They've been disabled for mic so they're only for casting to.
This works for me but my home is small and all I've really got is some Philips hue lights and a couple of smart blinds. I set up routines early on so I'm not really asking the assistant to do a lot of things using voice controls.
On my phone at work I use it when my hands are occupied, and I use it I'm the car (but my car isn't equipped for Android Auto etc). So I think for me it's probably just limited in what it can interact with to the point I don't notice it much.
@atrielienz @ObviouslyNotBanana If you use their Search and don't want all the AI results forced to top of results you can try using UDM14 https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/google-searchs-udm14-trick-lets-you-kill-ai-search-for-good/
Yeah I have udm14.com set as a custom search engine. So I don't use it for search. It's usually for things like triggering a camera or timer or similar for stuff at work where I might need to use a tripod, or for routines at home (smart lighting and blinds and the TV for my kid). I've been looking into swapping to home assistant but something's I haven't found solutions for yet.
Same here tbh. I havea university google suite account and I've never noticed it there. I also use Google messages, and there was a button for it by default, but it was easily disabled.
for months, every time i used google assistant to set a timer, and every few days without asking, i got push messages to use gemini instead of assistant on my phone. there is no way to disable those messages - they only go away if you have at least once activated gemini. btw, assistant functions like the timer DO NOT WORK if you use gemini; it's really great service to push your costumers to install a feature to take away a feature that is used daily.
I actually did activate it to test that now, because I thought there is no way they'd leave that out... And it works! It set me a timer.
But yeah, that's annoying. Very.