If you have a fancy LG Smart TV we have some potentially bad news. Select owners of LG OLED TVs have started receiving notifications that the Google Assistant is about to be removed. Yes, one of the most helpful smart features will disappear from your smart TV.
Many LG television sets connected to the internet can take full advantage of Google Assistant, or at least they could. A simple button press on the microphone or Assistant button on select remotes would fire up Google’s helpful tool, letting owners search for shows to watch, check the weather, pause/play, or even turn off the TV with voice controls.
Spotted by 9to5Google, owners of certain LG OLED TVs are getting notified of “Google Assistant Service Termination” via a pop-up on their big-screen TVs. Multiple LG users on Reddit received similar pop-ups this week. When is this happening? If the screenshots are accurate, some LG TVs will lose the Assistant on May 1st, 2025. If it makes you feel any better, the company will start integrating Copilot into screens later this year.
From what we’re seeing, LG plans to terminate access to the Google Assistant, but it’ll likely get replaced by something else. Here’s the pop-up owners are receiving on LG OLED TVs:
“Google Assistant Service Termination
Google Assistant will no longer be available on this device starting on May 1, 2025. The voice recognition service provided through the microphone button on the remote control will still be available for use.”
As this notice states, voice recognition will continue to be available, so hopefully, that means users can still use voice commands to turn off the TV; it just won’t happen through Google. Additionally, this shouldn’t cause any issues with other Google apps or services on your TV, as it’s only a discontinuation of the Assistant.
For now, we’re unsure how many LG televisions use Google Assistant or how many will lose the feature. That said, there’s a good chance any TV with the Assistant will see it phased out in the coming months. Google has already confirmed it plans to completely replace Assistant with Gemini throughout 2025, starting with smartphones first.
Once Google is done ditching Assistant with Gemini on Android, it’ll expand that rollout to other devices like tablets and cars that connect to phones. During Google’s announcement last month, the company said, “We’re also bringing a new experience, powered by Gemini, to home devices like speakers, displays and TVs. We look forward to sharing more details with you in the next few months. Until then, Google Assistant will continue to operate on these devices.” Now I’m curious if LG’s new touchscreen microwave will have an Assistant, too.
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LG’s move could simply be a proactive one, or the company could be getting ready to employ Copilot on some TVs and upgrade to Gemini on others. We’ll have to keep an eye out and see if LG makes a formal announcement or updates its support pages with more details.
At the end of the day, there’s a good chance your TV will eventually function the same way, or better, once it gets Gemini. And in other news, in February, LG announced its gaming portal with cloud streaming is coming to more TVs and displays this year.
Source: 9to5Google
