In the ongoing contest to become the AI assistant that workers reach for instinctively, Google has brought Gemini to the Windows desktop — a small but deliberate act of presence. By reducing the distance between a user and an AI response to a single keystroke, the company is betting that friction, however minor, is the enemy of habit. Whether this marks a meaningful shift in how people relate to AI tools, or simply adds another icon to an already crowded system tray, remains an open question that only daily use will answer.