What you need to know
- The assistant driving mode in Google Maps has officially disappeared, confirmed the company.
- The assistant driving mode is another characteristic of the victim of the transition of Gemini, which is currently underway.
- The functionality lost most of its features in February 2024, and only a media control bar and a voice assistant button stayed until recently.
Google officially removes the assistant driving mode of Android as part of the transition from Gemini. Functionality has undergone many changes since its introduction in 2019, more recently, the loss of the dashboard of the application has been a crucial part of the driving mode. Now it is no longer available as part of the Google Maps application for Android, said the company 9TO5GOOGLE.
In February 2024, the application launcher which included large icons that were easy to touch during driving was deleted. The most recent version of the assistant driving mode has only offered a multimedia reading bar and the A control button. It was mainly used by Android users who did not have a car with Android automobile features, because the driving mode offered a similar utility at a given time.
In fact, the assistant driving mode was initially considered a replacement and an alternative to Android Auto for phone screens, was killed in 2021.
The Assistant driving mode launcher was one of the many reminities of Google assistant features announced in January 2024. “Using the Google Maps Assistant Application Application Launcher to read and send messages, take calls and control the media,” said the company in a company support document at the time. “You can always use vocal control on Google Maps in the same way.”
More than a year later, even the driving assistant reading commands or the voice control button are not available as part of Google Maps. This is an intentional abolition which is part of the transition from Gemini, according to the company. At this point, this means that the assistant driving mode in the cards has disappeared for good.
This decision is part of a broader transition from Google Assistant to Gemini who was officially announced in March 2025. He is currently underway, and will see most of the mobile devices abandon the assistant in favor of Gemini in the near future.
