The highlight of any Pixel smartphone is always its software, and this time it’s no different. The Pixel 9 lineup is packed with AI bells and whistles, from generative photo editing tools and Gemini Nano to new additions like Pixel Studio. So, after getting my hands on a Pixel 9 Pro XL at work, I decided to rank these AI features from worst to best in terms of practicality, usefulness, and accuracy of results.
The goal of this list is to see if these new AI add-ons that Google is pushing are really worth the price. The Pixel 9 starts at $799, the same price as a new iPhone or a Samsung flagship. I’ve been excited about some of the AI features in previous Pixel phones, and after using the Pixel 9 Pro for about a week, I have some thoughts on its new features as well.
I’m going to gloss over the new features added to the Pixel 8 series. However, Video Boost has received some improvements, so I’ve kept it on the list. It’s also worth noting that this feature isn’t available on the base Pixel 9.
8. AI in Weather App and Screenshots
There are a couple of apps that made their debut on the Pixel 9 series. The dedicated Screenshots app and the all-new Weather app. Both feature AI summaries, which in the case of the Weather app generate a summary of upcoming weather conditionsSo you don’t need to go through the app to see if you need to bring an umbrella.
Similarly, in the Screenshots app, the AI will summarize the content of the image. Whether it’s a regular photo or a full article. I can see myself using both from time to time, but I I wouldn’t regret it if it disappeared one day. In fact, the weather summaries stopped working after using the device for a few hours. And after several attempts to set up the app, I couldn’t get it to work again. This seems like a last-minute addition overall.
7. Pixel Studio
This is a new standalone application that allows you create images using prompts similar to DALL-E or Midjourney. Google did well to include this free tool when it was released. But it doesn’t run on the device and requires an internet connection. I tried it and the results are on par with what you’d expect from AI images these days.
Some are cool, some are weird, and yes, there are restrictions in place. So forget about creating bold content or creating public figures in fancy outfits. However, you can spend a good twenty minutes working around its limitations. It even supports subtitles, allowing you to use it as a native meme app. Other than that, I didn’t find much of a point in a tool like this.
This can be useful if you are a content creator who sometimes needs AI images, but the the novelty soon wears off. After the second day, I went back to my usual set of apps and almost forgot about its existence.
6. Video Boost
Video Boost isn’t new, but to give you a quick rundown, it helps improve video quality by removing blur, stabilizing images, and improving colors. All of these features were already available with the Pixel 8 Pro. This time, we can record videos up to 8K resolution on the Pixel 9 Pro and XL.
The feature must be enabled before taking the video. The recorded footage will be uploaded to the cloud, where Google’s AI algorithms will do their magic and send you high-resolution footage. It took us two hours to get the results. The video had clarity, higher details and more stability.
But why can’t I just record in 8K to begin with? It’s like creating an artificial solution to a problem that shouldn’t exist in the first place. Most phones in this price range allow you to shoot in 8K natively. For all these reasons, this resolution isn’t as high on this list as it could be.
5. Improved zoom
Zoom Enhance was supposed to come out for the Pixel 8 Pro last year, but it’s finally here with the 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL. You can use it to crop an image and then enhance it with AI. To make the result sharper and more detailed. Kind of like those old crime dramas, where zooming in on a photo makes it clearer. 
I took a few pictures and enhanced them. The results were mixed. Some pictures were neat, others not so much. There were cases where it should have been able to easily recognize the object and use AI to recreate it in better quality. But there was a difficult to understand the subject and I only smoothed the edges. If it had object recognition I would have ranked it higher.
4. Reimagine
Reimagine is another new AI feature in Magic Editor. It lets you recreate the selected area of an image depending on the prompt you are given. Let’s say you select a clear sky in a photo, then you can write a prompt to show that it’s raining heavily, or get creative and type “it’s raining meatballs” and that should do it.
It’s amazing how well it transforms certain images, so much so that I prefer the reimagined version to the original. However, it gets confused easily, fails to understand the subject and I have to select it several times, otherwise it creates something random or unrelated to the prompt. This is a cool party trick to show off your new Pixel, but it will still look artificial, especially if you go crazy with your prompt.
3. Gemini Live
There’s also the new Gemini Live conversational chatbot. It’s not particularly exclusive to the Pixel 9 series, as Google itself demonstrated it on a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. You just need a Gemini Advanced subscription to get this feature. It’s capable of performing smoother conversationswhich can be interrupted in mid-sentence or paused.
It definitely feels smoother and more natural while I was briefly testing it out. But you could say it’s still in its early stages, as it I forgot the context after only three or four questions. and I had to be reminded what we were talking about. He also hallucinated a few times, but the responses were pretty quick. Still, in its current phase, it’s pretty impressive, and I’d like to see how Google improves it further. Also, I love the aura-like animation for Live mode.
2. Automatic frame
Magic Editor has also received a few new AI upgrades. The first is Auto Framing. It properly frames the subject in the center, zooms out images, and fills edges using generative fillingIt’s something like Snapchat’s Extend Snap feature which also uses AI, but a more refined version of it.
It’s pretty good at understand the environment around us and I make up the rest based on that. As a point-and-click enthusiast, I often mess up the framing of my shots, and I can see myself using it quite often. Yes, the AI part won’t be as good for all results, but it worked well in my tests.
1. Add me
I can’t be the only one who has trust issues when handing my phone over to someone to take a group photo, right? Well, the Pixel’s new Add Me feature can solve that problem with a mix of augmented reality and AI. It’s a two-step process: take a photo of your friends, and your friend can take over for you and take the photo. The Pixel will then use AI tricks to combine the two images and include everyone in the frame. And yes… you can use it to take a picture with yourself.
I tried it with my colleague Sagnik at the Jugo Mobile office, and it has its quirks. It will sometimes stack one guy on top of another, while other times it may cut off an arm or leg. It is also possible that you will feel like you are floating on air. But given that works on device without internetThis easily becomes a quality feature that will come in handy during the holidays.
Some features like Add Me, Auto Frame, and even Reimagine make good use of Google’s AI ingenuity. But the rest seems like fluff, just added for the sake of it. I don’t think Pixel Studio or the Screenshots app will receive regular updates and long-term support in the future. This is just an experiment on the company’s part to attract more consumers.
Other than a few, I don’t see myself revisiting these features in the future. But if you managed to get your hands on a Pixel 9 and try it out, share your thoughts below.
