Google drops the new Gemini Nano AI onto the Pixel 8 Pro in the December Pixel update

Google every few months graces Pixel users with “Pixel Drops” — software updates that provide not only security updates but also new software features. This month, the December Pixel Drop brings with it the usual security and various features but the big-ticket item is Google’s new Gemini Nano AI.

Alongside the Pixel Drop Google today announced Gemini, “the most capable general AI model we have ever built.” Gemini 1.0 arrives in three different sizes:

• Gemini Ultra — Google’s most capable and largest model for highly-complex tasks
• Gemini Pro — Google’s best model for scaling across a wide range of tasks
• Gemini Nano — Google’s most efficient model for on-device tasks

Gemini has been built to “seamlessly understand” various types of information simultaneously including text, images, audio, video and coding languages. With its three different sizes it is capable of running on devices of all sizes, from mobile smartphones to large data centres.

For consumers, Bard, which uses a fine-tuned version of Gemini Pro, will be available in English in more than 170 countries and territories and will be more capable than the previous version of bard at “understanding and summarizing, reasoning, brainstorming, writing and planning.”

As mentioned above, Gemini will also be arriving on the Pixel 8 Pro in the form of Gemini Nano, powering new features such as Summarize in the Recorder app, Smart Reply in Gboard and soon other Google products such as Search, Chrome and more thanks to the Google Tensor G3 chipset.

Google Pixel features

Summarise in the Recorder app is now powered by Gemini Nano thanks to the new AI update. this allows you to geta summary of your recorded conversations, meetings etc without having a network connection. This is all done on device thanks to Tensor G3 and Gemini Nano.

Gemini Nano is also front and centre with the new Smart Reply in Gboard — only available in WhatsApp at this stage but coming to more apps next year.

Another new feature coming to the Pixel 8 Pro in the December Pixel drop is Video Boost. this was teased at the Pixel launch and it now makes an appearance. This uploads your videos to the cloud where Google’s computational photography adjusts colour, lighting, stabilisation and graininess. It also enables the ability to use Night Sight video on the Pixel 8 Pro.

The December Pixel Drop also sees Photo Unblur get an upgrade — especially designed to photos of your pet.

But not for all?

One big question that does need to be asked here is, has Google forgotten about all the Pixels before this year? It seems that all the big-ticket items are Tensor G3 only, and even Pixel 8 Pro only for some reason which is not a great look for Google. they have promised updates for 7 years for their devices, hopefully they can figure out how to bring some of these fancy new features to older Pixels (is the 14-month-old Pixel 7 Pro really “older”) in the future.

For the full list of updates and new features check out the Google Blog or just download it to your Pixel now and start enjoying them for yourself.