Regular phone calls aren’t nearly as popular as they once were, but many major financial and healthcare institutions still use them to share important information. That’s why many people still record calls on their Android phones. Unfortunately, many Android phones, including Google’s Pixel phones, don’t let you record calls. That’s finally changed with the launch of the Google Pixel 9 series, which adds a feature that lets you not only record calls, but also transcribe and summarize them.

Recording phone calls actually sounds quite simple, but due to regulatory requirements, this feature is not enabled by default on many Android devices. Android only allows the pre-installed system dialer app to record the audio of a phone call. Because of this, many third-party call recording apps for Android use cumbersome workarounds that may or may not work. So if you want to record a phone call on your Android device, you have to hope that your device’s OEM provides a call recording feature in their dialer app or that one of the third-party call recording apps works for your device.

Google actually offers a call recording feature in the default dialer app on Pixel phones called “Phone by Google.” However, the feature was blocked on Pixel phones as well as other phones in certain regions, like the US. This is despite the fact that the “Phone by Google” app informs call participants that the call is being recorded, which satisfies the requirement of consent from both parties in many US states. For some reason, Google decided to completely block call recording on Pixel phones regardless of region. However, this was not always the case, as the feature was available on Pixel phones in some regions like India when it was launched.

Thankfully, with the release of the Pixel 9 series, Google has finally changed its tune. The company has introduced a new feature called Call Notes that records, transcribes and summarizes your phone conversations. The call audio is analyzed on the device using an AI model called Gemini Nano with multimodality, an updated version of Google’s mobile-optimized large language model Gemini Nano that can handle audio, voice and image input in addition to text.

How to use Call Notes to record phone calls

To activate Call Notes, simply open the Phone by Google app, tap the Three-point menu on the button Settingsknock Call notesand then switch on the “Enable call notes” switch. You may need to wait for the AI ​​model that supports the feature to download before you can enable it. Also, the feature is not available in all languages ​​or countries, so this menu may not appear at all depending on your region.

Once enabled, call notes can be easily activated from the overflow menu during a phone call. The first time you make or receive a call after enabling call notes, you may see a message on the call screen asking you to try the feature. You can click “Try it out” to enable call notes for the current call, or tap “More” Then “Call notes“ to activate it there.

When call notes are turned on, the Phone app will play an audio message during the call that says, “Google Call Notes is turned on. The call is being recorded.” This will notify everyone on the call that the call is being recorded. After you turn call notes on, a red dot will appear next to the call duration to let you know that the call is being recorded. If you turn call notes off during a phone call, the Phone app will play the message that says, “This call is no longer being recorded.” Then, if you turn call notes back on during a phone call, the Phone app will say, “Recording continues” instead.

After a phone call is complete, you can access the recording, transcript, and summary by navigating to the Recents tab in the Phone by Google app. You may have to wait a bit for the Call Notes feature to finish processing your phone call, but after that, you can see the summary below the call. Tap “View full transcript” to open a page where you can view, copy, or share the call summary, scroll through the call transcript, play the call recording, or share the call recording as an audio file (.wav).

Call recording is a long-overdue feature for Google Pixel phones, but it’s unfortunate that it’s only available via a feature exclusive to the Pixel 9 series. Since Call Notes is based on the new Gemini Nano with multimodality model, it’s unlikely to roll out to previous Pixel devices, which is a shame because it means those devices won’t have any official ways to record phone calls. Apple’s iOS 18 update, on the other hand, adds a similar feature, but it’s not limited to a specific iPhone model.