Made by Google 2024: A few AI features you might’ve missed | TechCrunch

Google’s annual Made by Google hardware event was held earlier Tuesday, and because the company announced so much stuff, a lot got lost in the shuffle. We rounded up some of the more intriguing AI-related announcements that didn’t get a ton of play, like the image-generating Pixel Studio and Pixel Screenshots, which helps save and organize info in screenshots.

Call Notes summarizes your conversations

For short-term-memory-challenged folks like this writer, Call Notes could be a useful feature.

Available on the Pixel 9 family of devices, Call Notes saves a summary of your conversation following a call. The details — and a transcript — are saved to your phone’s call log.

Now if that sounds like a potential privacy nightmare, you’re not wrong. Google says that Call Notes runs fully on-device and notifies all people on the call when recording is in progress — but we’ll have to let the security experts weigh in.

Pixel Studio is a new image-generating app

Pixel Studio, exclusive to the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro Fold, is an image-generating app powered both by an on-device generative AI model and Google’s Imagen 3 model running in the cloud. Pixel Studio lets you enter prompts to generate whatever creatively moves you, and add stickers and make edits and changes after the fact.

Creations from Pixel Studio — which requires a steady internet connection to use, despite the on-device component — can be shared with contacts via Google Messages.

Google PR told my colleague Ivan Mehta that Pixel Studio can’t generate human faces yet, presumably because of Gemini’s unfortunate slip-ups earlier this year. But the spokesperson didn’t say whether there were any other safeguards to prevent the app from generating potentially harmful images.

Pixel Screenshots are searchable

If you’re like me, you screenshot things liberally — tickets, QR codes, boarding passes and what have you — for easy access later. But screenshots aren’t exactly search-friendly. And that makes them a real pain in the rear end when you’re trying to find something specific.

Fortunately for soon-to-be Pixel 9 owners, there’s Pixel Screenshots, a new app that uses AI to analyze the content of screenshots, including any captured text, people and objects. Google Photos already did this — but Pixel Screenshots works locally.

Google gives this colorful example: “Let’s say your friend, who loves squirrels, has a birthday coming up. You may browse Google Chrome for a gift for them, screenshotting squirrel shirts, squirrel coasters and everything else squirrel-related you think they might like. Pixel Screenshots will analyze the content of all those images and make the information searchable for you in the app. So all you’ll need to do is open the app and search for ‘squirrel,’ and these results will pop up. Even better, it will include links to where you found everything and a summary of what you’re looking at with relevant information.”

Pixel Screenshots will also helpfully search for things like door codes and addresses across photos.