Built by Google in 2024: Some AI Features You May Have Missed

Google’s annual Made by Google hardware event took place earlier Tuesday, and since the corporate announced so many things, loads of it got lost in the deluge of data. We’ve rounded up a few of the more intriguing AI-related announcements that have not been covered much, just like the image-generating Pixel Studio and Pixel Screenshots, which helps you capture and organize information in screenshots.

Call notes summarize your conversations

For individuals who, just like the creator of this text, have problems with short-term memory, the Call Notes feature may prove useful.

Available on the Pixel 9 family of devices, the Call Notes app saves a summary of your conversation after you connect. The details—and a transcript—are saved to your phone’s call log.

If that seems like a possible privacy nightmare, you’re right. Google says Call Notes runs entirely on-device and notifies everyone on the decision when a recording is in progress — but we’ll let security experts weigh in.

Pixel Studio is a brand new image generation app

Pixel Studio, available exclusively for the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, and Pixel 9 Pro Fold, is an image-generating app that’s powered by each an on-device generative AI model and Google’s cloud-based Imagen 3. Pixel Studio enables you to input prompts to generate whatever moves you creatively, in addition to add stickers and make edits and changes after the actual fact.

Pixel Studio creations — which require a continuing web connection despite the component being on the device — will be shared with contacts via Google Messages.

A Google PR spokesperson told my colleague Ivan Mehta that Pixel Studio can’t yet generate human faces, likely on account of the unlucky Gemini missteps earlier this yr. But the spokesperson didn’t say whether there have been another safeguards in place to forestall the app from generating potentially harmful images.

Pixel screenshots are searchable

If you’re like me, you are taking screenshots of things casually—tickets, QR codes, boarding passes, and so forth—so you may easily access them later. But screenshots aren’t particularly search-engine friendly. And that makes them an actual pain while you’re trying to search out something specific.

Luckily for future Pixel 9 owners, there’s Pixel Screenshots, a brand new app that uses AI to research the content of your screenshots, including captured text, people, and objects. Google Photos already did this — but Pixel Screenshots works locally.

Google provides this colourful example: “Say it’s your chipmunk-loving friend’s birthday. You might be browsing Google Chrome looking for a gift for them, taking screenshots of chipmunk T-shirts, chipmunk coasters, and anything else you think they might like. Pixel Screenshots will analyze the content of all those images and make the information searchable within the app. So all you have to do is open the app and search for “chipstick,” and people results will pop up. What’s more, they’ll include links to where you found every little thing and a summary of what you’re taking a look at, together with relevant information.”

Pixel Screenshots can even show you how to seek for things like door codes and addresses in photos.