One of the main selling points of the new phones will be improved cameras that will mostly be available on the Pixel 8 Pro.
Google on Wednesday unveiled a next-generation Pixel smartphone lineup that will be infused with more artificial intelligence tools capable of writing captions about photos that can also be altered by the technology.
The injection of more artificial intelligence, or AI, into Google’s products marks another step toward bringing more of the technology into the mainstream – a push company executives signaled they were embarking upon during their annual developer’s conference five months ago.
Also see: Apple releases fix for issue causing the iPhone 15 to run ‘warmer than expected’
“Our focus is on making AI more helpful for everyone in a way that is bold and responsible,” Rick Osterloh, Google’s senior vice president of devices and services, said during Wednesday’s event held in New York. As if to leave no doubt about Google’s current priorities, Osterloh described the new Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro phones as a conduit for having “AI in your hand.”
The next moves will include allowing the 7-year-old Google Assistant to tap into the company’s recently hatched AI chatbot, Bard, to perform tasks. The expanded access to Bard comes just two weeks after Google began connecting the AI chatbot to the company’s other popular services such as Gmail, Maps and YouTube.
More on smartphones: Apple’s $59 fake-suede ‘FineWoven’ case is its biggest dud of 2023
One of the new tricks that the Bard-backed assistant is supposed to be able to do is scan a photo taken on a phone powered by Google’s Android software and generate a pithy caption suitable for posting on social media. As Google has been doing with most of its AI gambits, the Bard-backed Google Assistant initially will only be available to a test audience before it is gradually offered on an opt-in basis to more owners of the latest Pixels.
