The irony of Google’s Pixel 9 AI gamble

If there were any ounce of doubt remaining, I think we can safely set it aside now and say that Google’s all in on AI.

And, let’s be honest: That’s probably putting it mildly.

At its earlier-than-usual Made by Google Pixel launch gala this week, El Googabond made it clear that its next generation of Android-based Pixel phones would be all about AI. And good golly, it sure ain’t kiddin’.

The Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, and Pixel 9 Pro XL — along with the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, launching a little later in the year — represent a “rebuilding” of Android with “AI at the core,” as a Google executive put it in a prebriefing I attended ahead of Tuesday’s public event.

That kind of language is everywhere you look with these new Pixel products. Right off the bat, the official Google announcement proclaims that the devices “bring you the best of Google AI.” Another company blog post waxes poetic about how the now-present-on-Pixels-by-default Gemini Android assistant reshapes the Pixel experience. Everywhere you look and everything you see about the phones, it’s AI, AI, AI. And then AI some more.

It’s an interesting move that mirrors trends across the tech industry right now. Practically every app, service, and product you see is “AI-based” at this point, even if it does exactly the same stuff it did two years earlier — before those two lofty letters turned into an unavoidable buzzword. 

With Google’s Pixel phones, though, the singular-seeming emphasis on AI represents a puzzling duality with a more than a sliver of irony attached. And it sure seems like going all in on the idea of “AI” as a central identity of the Pixel model is a bold and risky gamble for Google to make.

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Google’s Pixel 9 phones, AI aside

Let’s get one thing out of the way: On the surface, at least, the new Pixel 9 phones look like spectacular products.

The Pixel 9 Pro XL, in its Rose Quartz color.Google

The Pixel 9 series maintains all the unmatched qualities that have made Google’s Pixel devices stand out from the Android pack since the very first model:

The phones sport the same pristine, unmuddled Android software experience that’s defined Pixels from the get-go, along with the same seamless integration with standout Google services and cohesive-feeling consistency with the greater Google and Android ecosystems.

They have all sorts of genuinely useful features no one else offers along with a lack of patience-testing and privacy-compromising additions so many other Android device-makers dump into their devices.

Their cameras look to be every bit as phenomenal as what past Pixels have possessed, with all sorts of intelligent software-driven editing tools and opportunities for effortless enhancements.

And they continue Google’s industry-leading seven-year promise for timely and reliable OS updates, security patches, and quarterly feature drops — something even Apple can’t outclass.

Newly polished outer appearances aside, the Pixel 9 devices add some interesting and useful-seeming practical elements into the equation, too, including a Call Notes feature that creates a private (and locally processed) summary of every call you make, a Pixel Screenshots app that lets you search through saved screenshots with natural language inquiries, and a futuristic new camera feature that lets you capture a group photo including yourself without having to rely on any awkward arm-stretching maneuvers.

That’s all awesome, right? So what’s the gamble — and where’s the irony?

It’s two-fold. And it’s something I suspect a lot of potential Pixel purchasers — particularly folks who aren’t already familiar with the Pixel experience and who might be considering a switch from a different type of device — are gonna be chewing over closely in the weeks and months ahead.

Google’s Pixel 9 AI obsession

First things first, let’s not beat around the bush: AI, in the way the word is most commonly perceived and defined right now, hasn’t exactly made a winning impression on most ordinary mammals.

Even specific to Google, the advent of all this generative AI gobbledegook has been a bit of a mess. The company has been pushing us with increasing aggressiveness to adopt its next-gen Gemini AI assistant in place of the classic (now “legacy”) Google Assistant while simultaneously injecting AI-powered poppycock into all sorts of awkward places — and for most of us, that largely seems to be leaving a bad taste.

From the facepalm-inducing inaccuracies and inconsistent, unreliable info these sorts of systems serve up to their lack of critical functionality core to the Android assistant arena, it’s been a frustrating and forced-feeling rush into a type of technology that seems at best not quite ready for primetime and at worst ill-suited for its intended purpose. Plain and simple, Gemini just isn’t an effective Android assistant when it comes to the types of tasks we need such a service to handle. And the “creative” elements it adds into the mix aren’t particularly compelling or pertinent for that environment.

Most of this is just an inherent side effect of the large-language-model concept at the heart of Gemini and other such systems. LLMs, as they’re called, can’t really analyze or understand anything. At the simplest level, they just look at patterns in language and predict the most likely next word in an ongoing sequence. That’s why they get so much stuff wrong and churn out so much low-quality info while having a tough time understanding and accomplishing the types of tasks we’ve come to expect our Android assistants to manage.

Plus, the systems’ most commonly touted new capabilities — being able to generate text (of questionable quality and originality) and create images (of questionable creepiness) — just aren’t things most of us actually need all that often or would be well-advised to use in most of situations, particularly in the business universe.

And I’m far from the only one who’s been sensing that.

Google, Pixels, and the AI fixation frustration

A study published by Washington State University earlier this summer dug deep into people’s perceptions of AI at this point. And — yes, indeed — it found that using the term “artificial intelligence” in a product description actively turns off potential purchasers and “reduces purchase intentions”:

The findings consistently showed products described as using artificial intelligence were less popular, according to Mesut Cicek, clinical assistant professor of marketing and lead author of the study.

“When AI is mentioned, it tends to lower emotional trust, which in turn decreases purchase intentions,” he said. “We found emotional trust plays a critical role in how consumers perceive AI-powered products.”

Oh, and also — emphasis mine:

Researchers also discovered that negative response to AI disclosure was even stronger for “high-risk” products and services, those which people commonly feel more uncertain or anxious about buying, such as expensive electronics. … Because failure carries more potential risk, which may include monetary loss or danger to physical safety, mentioning AI for these types of descriptions may make consumers more wary and less likely to purchase, according to Cicek.

So, yeah — there’s the gamble: By positioning the Pixels so firmly around the idea of “AI,” Google may actually repel potential purchasers who might otherwise be interested in the phones and all the legitimately great things they have to offer.

And now the irony: All AI placarding aside, Google’s Pixel phones have actually been delivering incredible real-world experiences with artificial intelligence at their core for years now — since the very earliest Pixel models. Most of that just happened before AI became a household term and took on its current generative AI association.

After all, much of the Pixels’ photography prowess is related to Google’s exceptional work with software-driven, AI-oriented processing. The same goes for the slew of post-capture editing and image-enhancing options offered on Pixels. The devices’ popular and extremely useful call-related features are all AI-provided advantages. The list just keeps going from there — and absolutely includes the most practical-seeming new additions from this year’s models, too, as mentioned a moment ago.

So it’s actually been AI that’s set Pixels apart and made them what they are all along. And it’s still AI that, in many ways, continues to make them commendable. That term has just taken on a new meaning now and brought with it a bunch of extra baggage and also-ran silliness most of us could happily (and arguably quite eagerly) do without.

The Pixel perception problem

For years now, I’ve been crowing about how Google has long struggled with figuring out how to market Pixel phones and present their very real, very compelling advantages in a way that both reaches and resonates with the general phone-buying public. As I wrote around this time last year:

Where the Pixel really stands out is in all the unique bits of Google intelligence it brings into the equation and the practical impact those elements add into your day-to-day life — things like the Pixel’s exceptional call spam screening system and its Call Screen feature, which can answer calls for you and lean on AI to interact with unknown callers so you’re barely even bothered by their interruptions. The Hold for Me feature, which takes over torturous holds for you and then notifies you when an actual (alleged) human comes back on the line, is another one of those things you never want to live without once you realize how helpful it can be.

And the updates — for the love of Goog, the updates. The Pixel’s long-standing advantage in the area of timely and reliable software update delivery has always been a difficult type of value to convey and get any “normal” phone owner to care about, important as those of us in these quarters may know it to be.

But [starting] with the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, being able to say “Our phones will remain viable and safe for you to use for a full seven years, which is more than anyone else offers” — and to be able to break down a specific dollar figure of exactly how much money that’ll save you over the course of the device’s life — that’s the kind of information that can make an impact with anyone and emphasize what sets the Pixel apart.

All those statements apply even more now with the Pixel 9 series. But now more than ever, Google risks getting lost in an ocean of AI ambivalence by focusing on those two letters as a primary reason for why the phones are worth owning — both in a philosophical sense, given that “AI” actually means very little (beyond maybe “unreliable and not particularly important”) to most people, and in a practical sense, since that focus relies on overused buzzwords instead of the genuine bits of specific practical value Pixel phones provide.

Focusing on Gemini — which, again, by all counts remains an incomplete, inconsistent, and unreliable Android assistant — feels like another liability when it comes to the Pixels’ public perception. It’s clear why tech companies so desperately want us to go gaga over these AI chatbots (hint: Look to their investors’ reactions), but it isn’t clear that their presence offers any meaningful value for most of us human phone owners in our day-to-day lives. And more and more signs suggest even the non-tech-obsessed lay-folk among us are starting to pick up on that and see “AI” as being something between a “meh”-inducing neutral and a “nah”-inspiring turn-off.

Google’s got so much good stuff going on with its Pixel devices, and that’s never been more apparent than now — with the unveiling of this new Pixel 9 series. But by zooming in so heavily on the area of AI and making the phones seem all about that, it risks sending the wrong message and highlighting all the wrong elements of what makes these devices so special.

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