Next week, the Pixel 9 family of smartphones will be unveiled at the Made By Google event of the same name. The annual event gives Google a chance to show what it thinks a smartphone should be. Last year’s Pixel 8 family offered new displays, improved cameras, updated software and its custom-designed Tensor Mobile chipset.

All of these changes allowed Google to present the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro as AI smartphones, defining how generative AI would be introduced into the mobile world. A year later, with this view of the market now the norm, Google can build on this success, solidify its view of smartphone AI, and control the critical dominance of artificial intelligence.

This week, Google can try everything again, only this time it’s not about defining the market, but about strengthening it.

Google has several AI tools that the Pixel platform has already introduced, and similar tools are available from several Android manufacturers. There are tools to remove, move or edit individual elements of a photo, the ability to move expressions between photos to get the best possible composite image, and tools to clean up audio in videos.

They have tools for transcribing audio, summarizing information from web pages and emails, and searching from a screenshot or even a circled part of the screen. AI can help filter spam calls, act as a translator on the go, and suggest replies, topics, and more as you compose on your phone.

All of these features were first introduced on the Pixel 8 family before becoming widespread across the ecosystem. In fact, Google’s search circle feature was first introduced on Samsung’s Galaxy AI platform, which mirrored many of the Pixel’s features and added many of its own. Other manufacturers introduced their own AI tools, and chipmakers made sure to hard-wire support for AI routines to support AI code.

They all followed the same direction and ethos that Google made public with the Pixel 8. That direction is further underlined this week with the launch of the Pixel 9 and a number of new AI features.

With the rise of genre-defining AI in Android, there is yet another competitive aspect. Apple is nowhere to be seen.

Google’s Pixel launch came two weeks after the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro were released. Apple’s September launch didn’t include generative AI or any new frontiers to explore. The iPhone 15 family was arguably the last of the major smartphone pillars to launch without AI. Apple’s first opportunity to talk about AI for the iPhone didn’t come until the Worldwide Developer Conference in June.

The software, which goes by the awkward backronym Apple Intelligence, would not be available immediately; it would have to wait until the iPhone 16 family launches in September. It would not be backported to any existing iPhone (except for the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max in 2023). Nor will Apple Intelligence be ready until the iPhone 16 launches in September 2024. A limited set of tools will be included in an October update to iOS, a basic ChatGPT implementation by the end of the year, and the full package shown off at WWDC won’t arrive until the first half of 2024.

Apple still has to keep up with the first generation of AI smartphones,

Meanwhile, Google is pushing Android forward and introducing the second generation of AI smartphones that will soon be released to the public. Google is the company that will make the decision about the future direction of AI.

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