GOOGLE PACKS MORE AI INTO NEW PIXEL PHONES
Assistant to tap into recently hatched AI chatbot, Bard, to perform tasks
Google on Wednesday unveiled a next-generation Pixel smartphones lineup that will be infused with more with more artificial intelligence tools capable of writing captions about photos that can be altered by the technology, too.
The injection of more artificial intelligence, or AI, into Google’s products marks another step in the company’s attempt to bring more of the technology into the mainstream — a push they signaled they were embarking upon during their annual developer’s conference five months ago.
“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 company’s next moves will include allowing its 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 service such as Gmail, Maps and YouTube.
Google is leaving it up to each user to decide whether to allow Bard to interact with its other services in an effort to address worries about AI sifting through potentially sensitive information in its effort to learn more about language and people.
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 do
ing 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.
As has become common across the industry, most of the other technology in the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro phones unveiled during an event in New York will be similar to what has already been available in last year’s models.
One of the main selling points of the new phones will be improved cameras, including more AI-empowered editing tools that will mostly be available on the Pixel 8 Pro. The AI features will be able to spruce up photos, zoom into certain parts of images, substitute faces taken from other pictures in group shots and erase objects and people completely from images.
Google is counting on the new AI twists added to this year’s lineup will be enough to justify a price increase — with the starting prices for both the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro increasing by $100 for last year’s comparable models.
That will result in the Pixel 8 selling for $700 and the Pixel 8 Pro for $1,000 when they go on sale in stores next week. Apple also raised the starting price of its top-end iPhone by $100 when its latest models came out last month, signaling inflationary pressures are
starting to drive up the costs of devices that have become essential pieces of modern life.
The Pixel 8 Pro will also be able to take people’s temperatures — an addition that could be a drawing card
in a post-pandemic era as various strains of COVID continue to evolve. But Google is still trying to get regulatory approval to enable that capability in the U.S. A 2020 phone, the Honor Play 4 Pro made my
Huawei, also was able to screen for fevers, so Google isn’t breaking totally new ground.
Despite generally getting positive reviews, the Pixel phones have barely made a dent in a market dominated
by Samsung and Apple since Google began making the devices seven years ago. But they have been gaining slightly more traction in recent years, with Pixel’s share of the high-end smartphone market now hovering
around 4 percent from less than 1 percent three years ago, according to the research firm International Data Corp.