Hands-on with the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro smartphones at the launch event in New York. (Photo by ED … (+) JONES/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
Next week, Google will unveil the Pixel 9 series of smartphones at its annual Made By Google event, where the company shows off what it wants in a smartphone. Last year's Pixel 8 series got new displays, improved cameras, updated software, and a custom-designed Tensor Mobile chipset.
All of these changes allowed Google to market the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro as AI-first phones, and in the process defined how generative AI would be introduced to the mobile world. A year later, with that market view now the standard, Google can build on that success to anchor its smartphone AI perspective and seize that all-important artificial intelligence advantage.
This week, Google will do the same thing again, but this time it's not about defining the market, it's about strengthening it.
Google has several AI tools it's demonstrated on its Pixel platform, and similar tools are available from several Android manufacturers, including tools to remove, move and edit individual elements of a photo, the option to move facial expressions between photos to create the best possible composite image, and tools to clean up audio recorded in videos.
There are tools to transcribe audio, summarize information from web pages and emails, and search based on screenshots or circled parts of your screen. AI can help you screen spam calls, act as a translator while you travel, and suggest replies, topics, and more as you compose on your smartphone.
All of these debuted with the Pixel 8 family and have since spread across the ecosystem. In fact, Google's Circle Search feature debuted on Samsung's Galaxy AI platform, which mirrors many of the features on the Pixel and adds a number of its own. Other manufacturers have introduced their own AI tools, and chipmakers have hardwired their chips to support AI routines in their AI code.
All of this follows the same direction and spirit that Google set out publicly with the Pixel 8, and will be further underscored by the launch of the Pixel 9 this week and its suite of new AI features.
There's another competitive dimension to the rise of Android's genre-defining AI: Apple is nowhere to be seen.
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks at the start of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 10, 2024 (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Getty Images
Google's Pixel launch came two weeks after the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro. Apple's September launch didn't feature generative AI or any of the new frontiers it was about to explore. The iPhone 15 series is likely the last major smartphone launch without AI. Apple's first opportunity to talk about AI in iPhone didn't come until its Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
The unnaturally backronymous Apple Intelligence software won't be available immediately; you'll have to wait until the launch of the iPhone 16 family in September. It won't be backported to existing iPhones (except for the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max in 2023), and Apple Intelligence won't be ready by the iPhone 16's launch in September 2024. A limited set of tools will be included in the October iOS update, with a basic ChatGPT implementation expected by the end of the year, but the full package to be shown at WWDC won't arrive until the first half of 2024.
Apple has yet to catch up with its first generation of AI smartphones.
Meanwhile, Google is pushing Android forward and preparing to release its second generation AI smartphone to the public, and it's Google that will decide the future direction of AI.
Read the latest smartphone headlines in Forbes' weekly Android Circuit news digest now…
