The standalone Google Assistant app reaches 100 million Play Store downloads

Damien Wilde | Aug 18 2020 - 5:13 am PT

The standalone Google Assistant app has now managed to reach the coveted 100 million download milestone over on the Google Play Store.

Considering that this is a completely separate instance of our favorite virtual voice assistant, that isn’t too bad. Even more impressive when you realize that this standalone Google Assistant app isn’t even needed on 99% of devices as it comes pre-installed.

In essence, this is just a homescreen (or app drawer) shortcut to the voice assistant activation and settings that you can download if you want another toggle — not that there aren’t enough already! The “app” was released back in 2017 but considering almost every smartphone released with Google Mobile Services has also bundled in the Assistant, you’ve probably never needed to download it yourself.

So while it’s a little unnecessary, it’s still a pretty impressive milestone that the Google Assistant is hitting 100 million downloads on the Play Store (via Android Police). It probably isn’t a go-to for many of you — and rightfully so. Although if you wanted to skip some clicks or taps, it can be useful for one-tap access to specific settings or controls.

Considering that this is tracking the installation or download rates of the standalone app, it would be really intriguing to see just how many people out there use the Google Assistant every day on their smartphones.