Google's new Pixel 9 can search your screenshots with AI - The future of image recognition is here!
Your screenshots sometimes contain vital information but retrieving them is not always easy. Mixed into my phone’s photo library right now are 4,811 screenshots, many of them containing information I thought I’d want to hang on to. But capturing those images was the easy part — finding them when I needed them was the real problem.
AI-Powered Image Recognition for Pixel 9
Google says it has a solution. Among other new AI tricks, Google’s new Pixel 9 smartphones — unveiled at the company’s Bay View campus in Mountain View, Calif. — can help you find vital info like WiFi passwords, event details, and more locked away in the screenshots you’ve snapped in the past.
All you have to do, the company says, is to ask, either in a new Pixel Screenshots app or by interacting with its AI-powered Gemini assistant. That means the days of scrolling endlessly through photos to find that one crucial image are just about over — if you’re willing to switch to a Pixel, anyway.
After chewing on your request, the app (ideally) answers it with the information pulled from the screenshot — and shows you the images that data came from, just in case.
Privacy and Opt-In Feature
The feature isn’t on by default — you have to specifically opt-in if you want to use it. And thankfully, none of your screenshots are ferried off to far-flung servers to be processed; Google says all of its image analysis happens directly on its Pixel phones, thanks in large part to its new Tensor G4 processors.
Compared to the current crop of AI tools embedded into smartphones — like text rewriters, image manipulators, and audio transcribers — this attempt to give phones a kind of visual memory could be surprisingly useful in daily life. After all, who among us hasn’t taken a screenshot of something they wanted to remember?
Features and Limitations
There are, of course, some caveats. The feature can pull useful tidbits from new screenshots you take, but by default, it can’t look at older ones saved in services like Google Photos. The app itself admits that its responses “may be inaccurate,” though it gives you an option to double-check its answers.
For better or worse, this tool is also one that Google plans to keep exclusive to its Pixel 9 smartphones, rather than make available to outside Android phone makers the company has partnered with on AI features in the past.
That’s not great news for owners of Android devices that already have the hardware needed to run AI models without having to reach out to the cloud.
Shipments of these “generative AI smartphones” are expected to more than quadruple this year, according to research from IDC.
Conclusion
Google's new Pixel 9 smartphones introduce groundbreaking AI features that leverage image recognition technology to make your life easier. From searching through screenshots to engaging in conversations with Gemini Live, these devices offer a glimpse into the future of smartphone capabilities.
While Google aims to differentiate itself in the crowded smartphone market, it's clear that competition is catching up. Whether Pixel 9 owners will benefit from exclusive features remains to be seen, but the advancements in AI technology are undeniable.
