At Made by Google 2024 on Tuesday, the company unveiled its new Pixel 9 series of smartphones. These devices will come with Gemini as the default assistant as well as a host of other AI-powered features.
In addition to photo editing features, the company is also adding a new app that lets you store and search screenshots on the device, as well as an AI-powered image generation studio.
Add Me allows people who take group photos to become a part of it. The company uses a combination of AR and various machine learning models to ask the photographer to swap places with someone after taking the first photo. The phone tells the second person to reset the image, and the AI model reframes both to create a photo with everyone in one frame.
The company introduced the Magic Editor feature last year on the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro with a magic eraser feature to remove unwanted objects and people. Google is now adding two new features to the Magic Editor with the Pixel 9 series.
The first feature is called Autoframing, which recomposes an image to keep objects or people in the photo in focus. Google says that Magic Editor generates several options for users to choose from. The Autoframing feature can also enlarge photos using generative AI. Google says that the second feature allows users to input the type of background they want to appear in their photo and the AI will generate it.
New Screenshots and Studio App
Google is adding new Screenshot and Pixel Studio apps to its new Pixel 9 series smartphones. The Screenshot app will store screenshots taken on the device and allow users to look up information through the screenshots, for example, Wi-Fi details for a vacation home.
Notably, Google Photos also has a search feature that lets you look up information like car license plates, passport numbers, etc. The new screenshot app works locally, however.
The company is also adding a new Pixel Studio app for creating AI-powered images on device. Google says the new app uses on-device viral models as well as models in Google's cloud. Users can enter any prompt to generate an image, then use in-app options to restyle it. Google says it can't generate human faces yet, likely due to Gemini's historical accuracy failure earlier this year, but it's open to whether it has any other limitations in generating potentially harmful images.