Google Assistant Is Gone From Android: Gemini Takes Over, and Gemini 3.7 Flash Gets Cheaper

In July the Google story was three new models and a missing flagship. This month it is something almost every Malaysian will actually notice: Google Assistant, the voice helper that has lived on Android phones for years, is being switched off in favour of Gemini. Alongside that, Google shipped Gemini 3.7 Flash, its new workhorse model, at a price that makes it hard to ignore. Let me walk through both and then explain what a business in Sabah should actually do.

Google Assistant is being removed

Google emailed users in early August, as first reported by 9to5Google, to say that Google Assistant is going away on mobile devices. The removal began on 4 September 2026 and rolls out over several weeks. It covers Android phones and tablets, Wear OS watches, compatible headphones and earbuds, and Android Auto when it is projected from a phone. Once it reaches your device, the option in the Gemini app to switch back to Assistant disappears for good.

A few things are not affected yet. Cars with Google built-in keep Assistant beyond September. Google TV, Google Home speakers and smart displays are moving to Gemini on their own schedule. But for the device that matters most, your phone, the change is happening now. Android is the dominant platform in Malaysia, so this touches a very large share of staff and customers here.

Why does it matter beyond a name change? Assistant was a rules-based system: you said a fixed phrase, it ran a fixed action. Gemini is a language model: it understands loose wording and can do far more, but it is probabilistic, which is why some reviewers have questioned whether it will be as dependable for simple things like timers and smart-home commands. In my experience the trade is worth it, but expect a few weeks of relearning how you talk to your phone.

Gemini 3.7 Flash: the everyday model, at half the price

On 13 August 2026 Google released Gemini 3.7 Flash, three weeks after Gemini 3.6 Flash, calling it its most intelligent workhorse model yet for coding and agents. It accepts up to a million tokens of input, reads images, video, audio and PDFs, and can call tools and drive a computer. Google's own comparisons against 3.6 Flash show sizeable jumps on agentic and coding benchmarks, including 30.4 percent versus 17.0 percent on AutomationBench, which tests business workflows.

The pricing is the headline for anyone building on it. Until 31 December 2026 the introductory rate is USD 0.75 per million input tokens and USD 3.75 per million output, half the launch price of the previous model. From 1 January 2027 it doubles to USD 1.50 and USD 7.50. It is available in Google AI Studio, the Gemini API, Vertex, and inside Gemini Spark, Google's always-on agent for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in more than 160 countries, which includes Malaysia. Gemini also now works inside Google Sheets on Android, so you can ask questions of a spreadsheet and build charts from your phone.

What Google still has not shipped is a new flagship. Gemini 3.5 Pro never appeared, and Google has said it has started its most ambitious training run yet for Gemini 4, with no date. So the pattern from July holds: the Flash tier keeps getting better and cheaper, and the top end waits.

Why this matters for a Sabah business

• Your staff's phones are changing. If your team relied on 'Hey Google' for calls, reminders or navigation, expect questions. A ten-minute walkthrough of the Gemini app, including how it now talks to Gmail, Calendar and Maps, will save a lot of small frustrations.
• If you are on Google Workspace, Gemini is now the assistant everywhere: phone, Gmail, Docs, Sheets. That consistency is an advantage for training. Teach one set of habits and they apply across devices.
• The 3.7 Flash price cut is temporary. If you have a developer or an agency building anything on Gemini, the cost roughly doubles in January 2027. Budget on the regular rate, not the introductory one.
• Agents like Spark are arriving in Malaysia. Spark is available to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers here. It is early, but a small trial on a recurring task, such as summarising a busy inbox each morning, is a cheap way to learn what these tools can and cannot do yet.

Your practical takeaway

Most people will experience this month's Google news as a mild annoyance: the phone assistant changed. I would treat it as a prompt. The AI on your phone is now the same family of models that powers Google Workspace and a growing set of business agents. Learning to use it well on the small things, voice notes, quick summaries, spreadsheet questions, is how a team builds confidence for the big things.

If you want that confidence built properly, that is what we do at NextGen Training Academy. Our hands-on, HRDC-claimable AI workshops in Sabah teach practical, everyday AI on your real work, whether the model underneath is Gemini, ChatGPT or Claude, so the skills outlast whichever name is on the app this month.