If you consider Google’s advertising hype, AI in a cellphone is admittedly, actually vital, the finest AI is Google’s, and the finest place to get that AI is Google’s flagship smartphone, the Pixel 8. We’re 5 months faraway from the launch of the Pixel 8, and that does not seem to be a justifiable place anymore: Google says its latest AI models cannot run on the Pixel 8.
Google dropped that information in a Mobile World Congress wrap-up video that was noticed by Mishaal Rahman. At the finish of the present in a Q&A session, Googler Terence Zhang, a member of the Gemini-on-Android staff, mentioned “[Gemini] Nano won’t be coming to the Pixel 8 due to some {hardware} limitations. It’s presently on the Pixel 8 Pro and really lately out there on the Samsung S24 household. It’ll be coming to extra high-end gadgets in the close to future.”
That is a wild assertion. Gemini is Google’s latest AI mannequin, and it made a giant deal of the launch final month. Gemini is available in a couple of totally different sizes, and the smallest “Nano” dimension is particularly designed to run on smartphones as a much-hyped “on-device AI.” The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are Google’s flagship smartphones. Google designed the cellphone and the chip and the AI mannequin and one way or the other cannot make this stuff play good collectively?
Adding to the weirdness is that Gemini Nano can run on the Pixel 8 Pro however not the smaller Pixel 8 resulting from “{hardware} limitations.” What limitations would these be, precisely? The two telephones have the very same Google Tensor SoC. They run the similar software program. The foremost variations between the two telephones are display dimension (6.7 inches versus 6.2), battery dimension, a special digicam loadout, and 8GB of RAM versus 12GB. RAM is the solely recognized distinction you may level to that might create a processing limitation, however Gemini Nano additionally runs on the Galaxy S24 collection, the place the base mannequin has 8GB of RAM. RAM being the problem would imply Samsung telephones are one way or the other extra RAM environment friendly than Pixel telephones, which is difficult to consider. If the Pixel 8 Pro Tensor 3 and Pixel 8 Tensor 3 are totally different one way or the other, that is not on the spec sheet.
Five months in the past at the Pixel 8 launch occasion, Google painted a really totally different image of the Pixel 8 collection: “I’m excited to introduce you to the subsequent evolution of AI in your hand, Google Pixel 8 Pro and Google Pixel 8. Our latest telephones convey collectively so many applied sciences from throughout Google. They’re the first telephones to make use of our latest Google Tensor chip. They embrace the easiest Android expertise, first-of-its-kind digicam experiences, and the latest AI developments from Google.” Both gadgets function the customized Google Tensor 3 SoC that Google claimed was “designed particularly to convey Google’s AI breakthroughs on to Pixel customers and present the world what’s attainable.” This customized Google AI-focused design was alleged to ship “unbelievably useful experiences that no different cellphone can.”
(*8*) Google
When you launch two telephones directly, it is all the time arduous to tell apart what the precise variations between the two models are. Sometimes, the gadgets get talked about in the plural, whereas different occasions “Pixel 8” is used to characterize each gadgets. Sometimes, the costlier gadget is singularly talked about for no motive aside from it is the costlier flagship. Between the hour-long presentation and personal press pre-briefing that Ars was part of, “What’s the distinction” grew to become a reasonably well-worn query that was anticipated to be answered clearly. Usually, the go-to delineator right here is the spec sheet, which is predicted to spell out in clear language what you are truly shopping for. The Google Store has a examine web page the place you may instantly pit the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro towards one another, and nothing spells out a distinction in AI processing capabilities or a distinction in the Tensor chips.
In the case of the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, Google wasn’t clear sufficient in its communication at launch. Today, although, re-watching the launch presentation with the new information that there is some dramatic distinction in AI processing capabilities, you may choose up some language like speak of the “Pixel 8 Pro’s on-device LLM” that you may now interpret as a declaration of unique AI capabilities for the Pro mannequin, however that wasn’t clear at the time.
As a shopper, it is arduous to not really feel misled, and it is embarrassing for Google, however to virtually care about this, you’d have to know what the heck “Gemini Nano” truly does and why it is best to care about it. That’s a tough query to reply. Google has a web page up right here detailing a few of the options Gemini Nano powers on the Pixel 8 Pro, however a function is also powered by totally different models on totally different gadgets. For what it is value, the rundown lists a “summarize” function for the Google Recorder app and “good reply” in Gboard. Plenty of Google apps have already got a “good reply” function with out Gemini Nano. Third-party builders may also plug into the onboard Gemini Nano mannequin for his or her apps, however it’s arduous to think about anybody doing that with such restricted gadget help.
The different possibility is to only neglect about doing all of this AI stuff on-device and simply do it in the cloud. As a terrific instance of this, none of this Gemini Nano stuff has something to do with the Google Gemini Chatbot, which all runs in the cloud. An enormous query is what this may imply for the smaller Google Pixel 8 going ahead. Google promised seven years of OS updates for the new Pixels, and to already be stripping down options resulting from “{hardware} limitations” after 5 months is a disappointment.