Google's New Pixel Screenshots: A Game-Changer for Digital Organization and AI Adoption

Google's new Pixel Screenshots takes an active (and safe) approach to organizing your digital life

During the recent Made by Google event, we got our first official look at many of the features coming to the Pixel 9 series, from Satellite SOS to Add Me. One of the standouts, though, was Pixel Screenshots, an app that aims to "help you save, organize, and recall information" collected on the smartphone. To explain how it works, let's say you're looking to update your wardrobe and find a nice pair of sneakers online. You take a screenshot of them and the app analyzes the image and places it into a digital library. From there, you can add a note to it for future reminders or save whatever screenshot you just took into a collection. These groups appear on the homepage of the Screenshots app for easy access. The app even houses its own mini search engine to help you navigate the library. Gemini Nano has been integrated into the software, allowing Screenshots to understand "complex queries." In the live demo, Google offers the example of a user typing "T-Shirt price" to locate an image of a shirt with the price tag in view. What's great is that the app also saves the URL inside an entry as below the main picture is a Chrome link to the source website. You no longer have to keep the tab open forever. Look down further, and it appears Gemini creates a short overview list of a product. If it's a shirt, the accompanying text tells you the item's name, its brand, where it was printed, and, interestingly enough, a brief description. It also appears users can share these entries with others and set up alerts for later viewing. If any of this sounds familiar, that's because Pixel Screenshots functions similarly to the highly controversial Microsoft Recall. Think about it: you're essentially feeding an AI a constant stream of screenshots displaying your internet history. That may sound scary on the surface, although the two have a major difference. Google's tech doesn't operate or record automatically. You have to give the app screenshots manually. It's a straightforward change that goes a long way in ensuring user privacy. There is no need to fear potential keylogging, which was a concern with Microsoft's tech. Pixel Screenshots is shaping itself up to be the next evolution for note-taking apps. It offers an incredibly convenient way to organize chaotic internet browsing. Hopefully, it means that image folders no longer have to be a total mess, thanks to Gemini doing all the work. There is still a lot we don't know about the software, like what kind of security measures are on board. The Tensor G4 chipset probably has data protection onboard, but how long do snapshots stay saved? Indefinitely? Or are old pictures deleted after a while? We would also love to know if there are plans to roll out Pixel Screenshots to older models. At the time of this writing, it's exclusive to the Pixel 9 series. Be sure to check out TechRadar's list of the top seven things we saw and learned at Made by Google.

Google's new Pixel Screenshots may be the feature that finally converts me to use AI

It won't turn my boring office background into a field of flowers, but being able to parse through hundreds of screenshots with a few clicks feels like a major win. According to the gallery app on my phone, I have 361 screenshots saved, including billing statements, important dates, memes, and web articles I've always wanted to revisit but didn't trust my browser to bookmark. If you asked me to find a specific image in the album, you'd have to give me a minute. Maybe longer. Also: Everything announced at Made by Google 2024: Pixel 9 Pro, Fold, Gemini, Watch 3, and more In theory, Google's new Pixel Screenshots feature should expedite that process, allowing me to simply type keywords or questions like "Con Edison bill for September" or "Which stadium is next week's soccer game taking place?" and the phone will populate the most relevant screenshots. It works like magic. Or, should I say, it works like AI? The AI part of Pixel Screenshots fits what I'll call the "old definition" better than the new one, meaning it has more to do with automated backend processing than content generation. You're not redefining a picture here, creating new emojis, or generating captions for images; instead, the Pixel 9's Gemini Nano extracts as much information as possible from screenshots, stores it, and then retrieves it when prompted. The whole Pixel Screenshots process happens on-device, so the internet and all its dangers are not involved when using the feature. Google tells me it plans to keep things that way for security and privacy reasons (read: the company would like to avoid a situation similar to Microsoft's Recall debacle), and I'm glad it is. Also: I went hands-on with every Google Pixel 9 model, and this is the one you should buy Besides screenshotting more things than I probably should -- because it's much easier to press two buttons simultaneously than to download a full webpage or save a URL in a notepad -- I often don't think about how much personal information ends up being captured in the frame. A skim through my phone's screenshots album reveals home addresses, usernames of close friends and family, contact numbers, and other trinkets of information that I'd rather not have fall into the wrong hands. I digress. From my brief demos of Pixel Screenshots, I'm most impressed by three things: the speed with which the phone pulls out image results (because this all works locally), the ability to upload and capture more images for the sake of future retrieval, and how seamlessly the feature works with natural behavior. To that last point, you don't have to purposely label or manually transfer screenshots for the feature to work; everything you capture automatically flows into the dedicated app. Also: Google's Loss of Pulse Detection feature on Pixel Watch 3 could save your life Some finer details tell me just how much thought was put into Pixel Screenshots, such as the ability to quickly launch the URL that the image was captured in on Chrome or YouTube and the option to set a reminder when you initially screenshot something. This feels bigger than just an archiving feature; it can potentially change the way we interact and bookmark digital content. At a time when smartphone makers are spending more time pitching AI features than camera hardware, Pixel Screenshots is a rare winner. I'm nearly sold on Google's AI vision here, and that may be just enough to reel me into the Gemini universe.