--- title: "Google Sends Out Bizarre Email Saying AI Will Now Control Your Phone’s Apps" description: "An ominous email to Android users is sounding the alarm on a strange new AI feature rolling out to their phones." date: "2025-06-27" modified: "2025-06-27" authors: - name: "Joe Wilkins" job_title: "Correspondent" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jwilkins" url: "https://futurism.com/google-email-ai-phone" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Google" tags: - "alphabet" - "gemini" - "Google" --- # Google Sends Out Bizarre Email Saying AI Will Now Control Your Phone’s Apps ![google-email-ai-phone]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* One of the most powerful tech corporations on earth has a message for Android users: its AI will soon be taking control of your phone. Android users have begun receiving [ominous emails]() warning that Gemini, Google's proprietary large language model (LLM), will soon be able to "help you" with apps like Phone, Messages, and WhatsApp. Crucially, the emails note that Gemini will be able to "help" users regardless of "whether your Gemini Apps Activity is on or off" — which prompted some understandable anxiety. A little on down the email, Google adds that "if you don't want to use these features, you can turn them off in the Apps settings page." Confusingly, it fails to explain how users can do this, or what that means in the context of Gemini's always-on helping hand. It's unclear what any of this help really means in practice, especially given the sensitivity of the apps in question — can Google's AI hijack your phone and make random calls? Can it monitor your texts, and share your data with Google to mine and sell to advertisers? The Gemini takeover goes live on July 7, giving Android users just two weeks to prepare — whatever that means to them, as Google has yet to clarify. It's a pretty troubling warning, in part because of Gemini's notoriously glitchy errors, and also due to Google's lousy track record when it comes to privacy protection. For example, the tech titan has been caught running a massive [data-scraping campaign]() through its [DeepMind lab](), nabbing data from websites that had opted out of that practice. Meanwhile, a US federal judge set a trial for August after Google was caught [collecting personal data]() from Android and non-Android phones, even after users had turned data tracking off. Gemini, meanwhile, is prone to making some wild errors. Its been known to [plagiarize]() when it generates its wild artificial slop, spit out [harmful]() and [incorrect]() info when summarizing information, and even launch into [explosive tangents](), hurling insults and death wishes at users. With that kind of track record, Android users are right to wonder who's really meant to benefit from Google's vague and ill-defined helping hand. **More on Google:** [*Google is Building Three New Nuclear Plants for Its Extremely Power-Hungry AI*]() ## Author At Futurism, I focus on the intersection of technology and power — examining the economics, history, and politics behind today’s dystopian headlines. As a writer, I’m interested in topics ranging from AI’s impact on labor to startups nobody asked for. My prior work includes bylines in Jacobin, Verso, and Blue Labyrinths. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Forbes, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Time, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Verge, and Wired. I grew up in Michigan, attending Central Michigan University as well as Ball State University, where I earned a master of music. I now live in Brooklyn with my girlfriend and our cat Ziti. On weekends, you can find me hunched over a cold pint arguing geopolitics with the other transplants. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()