The Pixel 8 Pro has tons of AI features in its camera – we found out why (Image: Google)
Michael Specht, Pixel camera product manager at Google working on its smartphone camera team, totally understands if you find the rise of artificial intelligence unsettling.
“I can clearly understand someone like my parents saying, you know, I don’t understand this. This is a little bit kind of scary to me,” Specht said.
Whether you have an iPhone or Android phone in your pocket, there is a lot of technology stuffed into the smartphones we carry around. They have meant that we no longer lug around several different devices – now we have a phone, calculator, notebook, and camera all in one.
Phone cameras have practically destroyed the compact camera market. Because every smartphone camera is already so good, phone makers are now using software and artificial intelligence (AI) to boost pictures and improve them beyond what the viewfinder sees – sometimes by erasing people or objects completely.
“Mobile imaging has evolved to the point that it’s becoming difficult to differentiate an image captured on a mobile camera or one from a dedicated camera that costs ten thousand dollars”
One company leading the way on AI in smartphone cameras is Google with its Pixel phones. Express.co.uk spoke to Google’s Specht to find out exactly what it takes for the company to upgrade the Pixel camera every year on its latest flagship phones – and why bringing as many features as possible to its cheaper Pixel A-series devices is so important to the company.
“Mobile imaging has evolved to the point that it’s becoming difficult to differentiate an image captured on a mobile camera or one from a dedicated camera that costs ten thousand dollars,” Specht told us in an exclusive chat.
Specht is a keen photographer who previously worked at Apple (Image: Google)
“For our philosophy, we want to try to mimic authenticity with how our eyes see it, but give you the creative controls … to then go and make changes, even before you capture the image, or after you capture the image, to go down your own path of artistic vision.”
Specht, who worked at Apple on the iPhone camera team for more than a decade, now helps head up the Google Pixel camera team in the US, recently working on the cameras in the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, Google’s latest flagship Android devices.
Because phones are so small, we have reached the size limit for cameras in phones, which is forcing companies like Google to get creative with software to improve phone photos.
“From our perspective, spec sheets aren’t everything, right? Like, you can have 50 megapixels, you can have different size sensors, but that’s just one small piece to the puzzle,” Specht said.
“If you look at the evolution of mobile photography, the advancements in software and the imaging pipeline have become a result of the form factor and not being able to put a full 35mm sensor in a mobile camera.”
The Pixel 8 has plenty of advanced AI photo tools (Image: Google)
Google integrates AI into its Pixel camera, and has for many years. Ever since the Pixel 3 introduced Night Sight, Google’s night mode, the phones have been using AI to enhance photos. But now that AI is a big buzzword in tech thanks to the popularity of tools such as ChatGPT that can generate text and images, Google’s use of AI is hotting up.
“Our core principle for Pixel camera and capturing images is really rooting it in authenticity. So whether AI or gen-AI is used, our goal is to really enhance the pixels that exist there today, not to create something entirely new,” Specht said.
Newer Pixel features such as Magic Eraser let you erase people and objects from photos, while Magic Editor allows you to change the sky’s colour or enlarge objects. Specht told us the rise of what is known as generative AI (gen-AI) means Google can run complex computations in the cloud or on the device, turning the Pixel into a mini-Photoshop in your pocket.
“From our perspective, spec sheets aren’t everything, right? Like, you can have 50 megapixels, you can have different size sensors, but that’s just one small piece to the puzzle”
“Photoshop has been around for a very long time,” Specht said. “With something like Magic Editor, we’re just replacing the Photoshop process with something way more accessible all in one place. With the same device you capture, you get to edit and make it accessible to a customer that doesn’t necessarily need to go through 10 hours of YouTube videos [to learn how].”
He said phone cameras are getting close to being able to capture what the human eye can see but that it remains a challenge as Google wants to let people get artistic with blur and other photographic effects that have existed for decades.
“From our philosophy, we want to try to mimic authenticity with how our eyes see it, but give you the creative controls … to then go and and make changes, even before you capture the image, or after you capture the image to go down your own path of artistic vision as well”
But these new AI tools aren’t just limited to the pricey £999 Pixel 8 Pro. Some features are coming to older Pixel phones in software updates known as Pixel Feature Drops.
“Purchasing a phone is not something that everyone does every year, and I think making sure that you take care of all your customers, regardless of how often they upgrade, is super important”
“Purchasing a phone is not something that everyone does every year, and I think making sure that you take care of all your customers, regardless of how often they upgrade, is super important,” Specht said.
“I think that’s quite unique to Google. We really take pride in when you purchase a device from us, we want to take care of you, and as we make advances, we want to bring those advances back to you as much as we can. So part of our philosophy is really as we develop these features, which ones can we bring back [to older phones]? What’s feasible for us to actually do?
“You won’t see many mobile camera companies doing this for their customers.”
But Specht was tight-lipped on what Google might have up its sleeve to blow our minds with AI on the camera of the expected Pixel 9 phones coming later in 2024, or the rumoured Pixel 8a that could be launched at Google I/O in May.
“We have big research teams that are always looking multi-years out and looking at the latest and greatest cutting edge of technology. Sometimes those feature developments take a year, sometimes they take five years.
“One thing that I think the average person will probably find surprising is how deeply we think really far out in advance to develop these cameras. It takes a lot of effort.”
