Gemini will soon work as your Android assistant even with ‘Activity’ disabled

Abner Li | Jun 25 2025 - 4:30 am PT

Google has announced (via email) that Gemini app users can soon access basic smart assistant capabilities on their Android phone without having usage “Activity” saved.

When the Gemini Apps Activity setting is enabled, your prompts (and Gemini’s responses) appear on myactivity.google.com/product/gemini, and are used by Google to “provide, improve, develop, and personalize Google products and services and machine-learning technologies.” Human reviewers can “read, annotate, and process” that data.

The Android and iOS apps prominently link to Gemini Apps Activity in the profile menu on Android and iOS, while you can find it at the top of Settings & help in the gemini.google.com side panel.

Like Web & App Activity, Timeline (Location History), and YouTube History, Google lets users turn off (and delete) Gemini Apps Activity. However, your “conversations will be saved with your account for up to 72 hours”:

Advertisement - scroll for more content

Google uses this data to provide the service, maintain its safety and security, and process any feedback you choose to provide.

If that setting is disabled, Google previously did not let you use the Gemini extensions (officially referred to as “Apps”) for:

@Phone: Call contacts, phone numbers, businesses, organizations
@Messages: Send messages
@WhatsApp
@Utilities

The latter lets you open apps, set timers/alarms, control phone settings, media playback, check and reply to messages, and much more.

Basically, those extensions provide basic smart assistant functionality. Starting July 7, you can use those four extensions even if Gemini Apps Activity is disabled. This comes ahead of Gemini replacing Google Assistant later this year.

As the email (which not all users have received yet) explains, you do not have to use those four Gemini extensions, and they will remain disabled if you have already switched them off (from Gemini > profile menu > Apps).