The Pixel 9 is a great phone. Gemini makes it even better. I had my doubts, but this AI is no laughing business and leaves Apple Intelligence far behind.
Apple wants you to believe that the iPhone 16 is the one true AI phone that will change your life in meaningful ways. After all, you don’t just slap a “Built for Apple Intelligence” marker on every page where the phones are waxing poetic about their private and practical AI chops.
My mileage has been quite disenchanting so far, and it seems you should not buy into all those claims until Apple releases all the AI tricks that it has promised so far. That wait could extend well into 2025. On the other hand, you have the Google Pixel 9.
It’s a phone that is truly struggling with its AI identity. It wants you to buddy up with a chatty AI. It will put AI into your images in hopes of making Photoshop tricks look ancient. It wants to be your copilot at work stuff, too, such as writing mail responses or brainstorming a draft.
Aside from absolutely mundane stuff like setting up an alarm, the Pixel 9 wants to put AI into almost everything you want a phone for. Even screening and attending calls are not off the table here. AI everywhere. That’s the core premise.
But that doesn’t mean that AI deployment is necessarily meaningful. Or even accurate. I’ve been pushing the AI chops of the Pixel 9 ever since I got my hands on the phone, and if you’ve been wondering if the phone’s worth its AI salt, here are the AI tricks that just might win you over.
NOTE: The Pixel Screenshots app is exclusive to Pixel 9 phones. The remaining features are tied to Gemini Advanced, which is free for a year on Pixel 9 Pro devices and requires a Google One AI Premium subscription (starting at $20/month) with many other features in tow.Gemini in Gmail
Unsurprisingly, Google is pushing Gemini in every corner of its product ecosystem. Gmail is one of the most ubiquitous, just after Google Search.
Google isn’t exactly the first name to experiment with AI for emails. Shortwave was among the first to take the plunge and continues to do an excellent job. Apple Intelligence has also pushed a summarization system and Smart Reply feature to mail, but it’s hit or miss.
Gemini offers the best integration of AI I’ve seen in any mail app so far. Though it exists separately as its own actionable icon at the top, right by the search bar, it can handle your queries more intuitively.
Let’s say the only thing you remember about an email was that it was about some keyboard, but no detail about the brand name or the sender. A query like “What was the email about the compact keyboard I got in July?” does the job just fine.
But that’s just the start. With a little bit of detail sprinkled into the prompt, you can write an email response without ever opening the email. You can say, “Send a reply to Jessica, telling her I like the idea of a bag with an embedded tracker.”
Gemini will not only craft a response but also pick up a handful of other details, like the product name, launch, features, etc., from the appropriate email and craft a well-written professional response. Alternatively, you can simply ask it to write an original email.
Going a step further, Gemini actually makes things even more convenient when handling an overflowing inbox. The summaries are mostly accurate and far better than Apple Intelligence or any other software I’ve used so far.
Moreover, these summaries work just fine for single emails and entire threads. However, I recommend tapping on the “View longer summary” option, as it does a fantastic job of picking up the overarching tone and the tiny details that matter.
