So it’s actually been AI that’s set Pixels apart and made them what they are all along. And it’s still AI that, in many ways, continues to make them commendable. That term has just taken on a new meaning now and brought with it a bunch of extra baggage and also-ran silliness most of us could happily (and arguably quite eagerly) do without.
The Pixel perception problem
For years now, I’ve been crowing about how Google has long struggled with figuring out how to market Pixel phones and present their very real, very compelling advantages in a way that both reaches and resonates with the general phone-buying public. As I wrote around this time last year:
Where the Pixel really stands out is in all the unique bits of Google intelligence it brings into the equation and the practical impact those elements add into your day-to-day life — things like the Pixel’s exceptional call spam screening system and its Call Screen feature, which can answer calls for you and lean on AI to interact with unknown callers so you’re barely even bothered by their interruptions. The Hold for Me feature, which takes over torturous holds for you and then notifies you when an actual (alleged) human comes back on the line, is another one of those things you never want to live without once you realize how helpful it can be.
And the updates — for the love of Goog, the updates. The Pixel’s long-standing advantage in the area of timely and reliable software update delivery has always been a difficult type of value to convey and get any “normal” phone owner to care about, important as those of us in these quarters may know it to be.
But [starting] with the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, being able to say “Our phones will remain viable and safe for you to use for a full seven years, which is more than anyone else offers” — and to be able to break down a specific dollar figure of exactly how much money that’ll save you over the course of the device’s life — that’s the kind of information that can make an impact with anyone and emphasize what sets the Pixel apart.
All those statements apply even more now with the Pixel 9 series. But now more than ever, Google risks getting lost in an ocean of AI ambivalence by focusing on those two letters as a primary reason for why the phones are worth owning — both in a philosophical sense, given that “AI” actually means very little (beyond maybe “unreliable and not particularly important”) to most people, and in a practical sense, since that focus relies on overused buzzwords instead of the genuine bits of specific practical value Pixel phones provide.
