The Google Pixel 9 series has been confirmed to be unveiled by the company on August 13. Ahead of the launch, a new report has revealed three new artificial intelligence (AI) features that may be featured on the smartphone, which will reportedly be the first for the smartphone series to ship under the “Google AI” branding. The new screenshot feature is one of the three features, and based on the reported description, it seems to be slightly different from Microsoft's recently announced Copilot+ AI Recall feature for PCs.
Google Pixel 9 reportedly comes with AI screenshot feature similar to Recall
In May, Microsoft introduced an AI-powered feature called Recall, which periodically takes and stores screenshots of your PC, creating a chronological logbook of your activity on the device. You can then ask the AI what you were doing on a particular day and time, and the on-device AI can process and share the information from the screenshot database.
However, the feature has come under fire for its privacy-invasive nature and lack of security and encryption, leading Microsoft to delay the release of Recall, promising to add some security features.
Google AI screenshot feature
Photo credit: Android Authority
But according to a report from Android Authority, Google's take on the feature is slightly different: Instead of capturing screenshots on its own, the phone will save manually clicked screenshots with additional metadata, including app names, web links, and other information. An on-device AI (likely a Gemini Nano AI model) will then process these images and answer user questions about them, the report said, citing anonymous sources.
While the use cases and exact implementation of this feature are currently unknown, the screenshot feature could provide a way for users to organize and quickly derive information from their saved screenshots.
Other Google AI features are expected to be announced next month.
In addition to the AI screenshots, the report also reveals two more Google AI features. One of them is “Add Me.” The feature description in the image shared by the magazine reads, “Make sure everyone is in your group photos.” Based on this information, the feature appears to be an add-on to last year's Best Take feature, which improves people's expressions in group photos. “Add Me” can help users when a group photo is missing some members. Users may be able to take other group photos and merge them with the target photo to add the missing members.
Google AI Features
Photo credit: Android Authority
The other feature is called Studio, and the description reads, “You imagine it. Pixel creates it.” While the description makes it look like a typical AI image generator, the report claims it can do much more than that, allowing users to edit images and even create stickers. If true, the feature would be similar to Apple's AI-powered Image Playground feature announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024 in June.
Apart from this, the shared screenshots also highlight that Circle to Search and the built-in Gemini AI assistant will also be shipped as part of Google AI when the Pixel 9 series launches.