https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/android-users-could-soon-replace-google-assistant-with-chatgpt/

Hey Android users, are you tired of Google's neglect of Google Assistant? Well, one of Google's biggest rivals, OpenAI's ChatGPT, is apparently coming for the premium phone space occupied by Google's voice assistant. Mishaal Rahman at Android Authority found that the ChatGPT app is working on support for Android's voice assistant APIs and a system-wide overlay UI. If the company rolls out this feature, users could set the ChatGPT app as the system-wide assistant app, allowing it to pop up anywhere in Android and respond to user questions. ChatGPT started as a text-only generative AI but received voice and image input capabilities in September.

Usually, it's the Google Assistant with system-wide availability in Android, but that's not special home cooking from Google—it all happens via public APIs that technically any app can plug into. You can only have one app enabled as the system-wide "Default Assistant App," and beyond the initial setting, the user always has to change it manually. The assistant APIs are designed to be powerful, keeping some parts of the app running 24/7 no matter where you are. Being the default Assistant app enables launching the app via the power button or a gesture, and the assist app can read the current screen text and images for processing.