Personal Intelligence is coming to Android Auto and cars with Google built-in, and at first glance, it’s the kind of feature that could make users love the new assistant or hate it even more. That’s because Gemini has so far been a letdown for many Android Auto users, mainly due to glitches that prevented it from running even the most basic tasks.
The purpose of Personal Intelligence is simple: it’s trying to make Gemini an even more personal assistant, and to do this, it gets access to the rest of the Google applications that you already installed and use on your phone.
These include Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, YouTube, and even Google Photos.
Why it needs access to all these apps? Because that’s the only way Gemini can become truly personal, as it needs more information about your emails, the videos you watch, the locations you visited, and your past and upcoming appointments.
Photo: Bogdan Popa/autoevolution
Using information collected from these apps, Gemini can offer more relevant answers when being prompted to look for something in your car.
For example, if you’re on the road and want to make sure you won’t miss your flight, you can ask Google about the departure time and possible delays.
You don’t have to provide any specifics, as it’s enough to ask about your flight, with Gemini searching other Google services, such as Gmail, for flight information. It can look for an email where your flight was confirmed, extract the departure time, look it up online, search for any delays, and then offer a detailed answer right on your Android Auto screen.
The best thing about this feature is that you can speak naturally, so you don’t need to remember any phrases. Once Gemini can access the rest of the Google apps, it can figure out what you mean, and if it needs more information, it’ll ask for it.
Gemini isn’t limited to just one service at a time, so if your request includes information from multiple apps, it’ll look everywhere for a complete answer.
For example, you can tell Gemini to find the coffee place in the photo submitted by a friend (and saved in Google Photos) and set navigation to its address. The assistant will load the gallery, look for recent photos with a coffee place, figure out more details to determine its location, and then launch Google Maps to configure navigation to the address it found online.
Another big feature is the ability to keep your conversations and continue from where you left off. As you drive with Android Auto on the screen, you can ask Gemini about a request you submitted in previous days, and the assistant will remember it.
Photo: Bogdan Popa/autoevolution
Without a doubt, many people might be concerned that Personal Intelligence is a way to surrender all their privacy and let artificial intelligence be in control of their lives.
Google says these concerns shouldn’t exist because users are always in control of what they share and how they share.
“Your apps aren’t connected until you choose to turn it on, and you can turn it off anytime in your Gemini settings. And cars with Google built-in only share personal responses when you’re in the car with your phone connected,” Google says.
But probably the most important part is that Personal Intelligence is not tied to a specific feature integrated into Gemini. This means that if you want to use Gemini without activating this new feature, you can very well do so without facing any restrictions. Sure, it wouldn’t be such a big surprise to see this changing in the long term, but for now, you can enjoy the rest of the Gemini feature arsenal without having to enable Personal Intelligence.
Photo: Bogdan Popa/autoevolution
The only difference is that “answers won’t be tailored to you,” as Google itself puts it. You’ll lose the personal part of artificial intelligence.
The rollout of these new capabilities has already started on Android Auto, while users running the new AI-powered assistant in a car with Google built-in will have to wait a little bit longer. Google says Personal Intelligence will land in these cars in the coming months, so expect it to show up in early 2027.
There’s one important mention, though. Personal Intelligence is only available for users who are at least 18 years old and can be used exclusively with personal Google accounts. This means that if you use Workspace business, enterprise, or education accounts, Personal Intelligence won’t be available on your device.
Google doesn’t tie the release of this feature to a specific Android Auto version, but you should still keep the app up to date to receive the latest fixes and improvements.
