A drive assist apparatus includes a detector and a traveling controller. The detector detects an operation target of automatic emergency braking of a vehicle. The traveling controller includes a calculator and a determiner, and controls the automatic emergency braking on the basis of a result of the detection performed by the detector. The calculator calculates each of a target deceleration rate and a variation rate. The target deceleration rate is a target value of a deceleration rate of the automatic emergency braking. The variation rate is a rate of variation in the deceleration rate required for the deceleration rate of the automatic emergency braking to reach the target deceleration rate. The determiner determines a contact risk of the vehicle with the operation target on the basis of the target deceleration rate. The calculator increases the variation rate when the contact risk is determined by the determiner as being relatively high.