Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does release of LLM API relate to assistant?
Pixels replaced Assistent w/ Gemini a while back and it was horrendous; would answer questions but not perform the basic tasks you actually used Assistant for (setting timer, navigating, home control, etc). Seems like they're approaching parity (finally) months and months later (alarms/tv control work at least now), but losing basic oft-used functionality is a serious fumble.
I sometimes forget - it is still very early days relatively speaking.
As a user of Gemini 2.0, so far I have been very impressed for the most part.