Google finally gives more Android phones their own Assistant

Google is rolling out its personal AI Google Assistant to users with phones running older versions of its Android OS, finally giving more people the voice-controlled smart features that are becoming a hallmark of the platform.

The company announced the AI will soon be available to users running the 5.0 Lollipop version of Android OS. Tablet owners will get in on the action if they're on 7.0 Nougat or 6.0 Marshmallow.

Lollipop phone users have already begun to see the update in the U.S. and other countries if English or Spanish is their default language, and the feature is also rolling out in Italy, Japan, Germany, Brazil, and Korea. Eligible English language tablet users in the U.S. will begin receiving the update "over the coming week."

The late release of Assistant is a nice addition for the 26.3 percent of Android users on the three-year-old OS, but it shows a weakness in the way Google updates its software. Unless you upgrade hardware at every new release, you're probably going to miss out on the latest and greatest Android features, since not all hardware is guaranteed to run every update.

That leads to awkward situations like all iPhone users gaining access to Assistant before a big chunk of the population the AI was built to serve. More Android users will now finally get a more fully realized OS experience. Better late than never.