The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro also feature Assistant’s more “realistic-sounding” voice, which interacts with callers via Google’s Call Screen feature. The Call Screen, which can answer phone calls on a user’s behalf, has been upgraded with a more natural-sounding series of voice prompts to determine who’s calling. The background-noise-reduction feature, Clear Calling, has been improved for clearer calls, and Call Screen is better at detecting and filtering out spam calls. The Assistant-powered At a Glance widget on the home screen has been updated with a new design and shows more useful info. These enhancements are part of Google’s new generative-AI-first strategy with Google Assistant.
Key takeaways:
- Google announced the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, featuring a temperature sensor, off-device video processing, enhanced photo editing tools, and an upgraded set of AI features powered by Google Assistant.
- Google Assistant on the new Pixel devices can summarize, read aloud, and translate web pages, and its voice typing is twice as fast in English and can handle multiple languages.
- The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro will benefit from Assistant’s more “realistic-sounding” voice, which will engage with callers via Google’s Call Screen feature, and the Clear Calling feature has been improved for clearer-sounding calls.
- The enhancements are part of Google's new generative-AI-first strategy with Google Assistant, which includes capabilities that integrate with Bard, Google’s answer to OpenAI’s viral ChatGPT chatbot.