It’s no secret that Google has had to change its plans to adopt artificial intelligence in its products, in response to the success of ChatGPT. This caused internal problems, as all teams were suddenly given priority to implement AI in their projects. Gemini’s launch failed to address all of these issues, as evidenced by the controversial decision to discontinue one of its new phones, the Pixel 8.
Surprisingly, Google confirmed a few weeks ago that the Pixel 8 was left without the Gemini Nano. This is the lightest version of Google’s new AI, designed precisely to run on mobile phones and other devices; Instead of relying on an external server, phones equipped with Gemini Nano can use AI functions locally.
Many users have not missed that leaving aside the Pixel 8, the Gemini Nano functions have become exclusive to the company’s most expensive mobilethe Pixel 8 Pro. In this way, Google seemed to send the message that only users willing to pay more deserve to enjoy the latest features.
The Pixel 8 will have Gemini Nano
The official reason Google engineers gave for this decision was “hardware limitations,” a somewhat odd phrase given that the Pixel 8 uses the same Tensor G3 processor as the Pixel 8 Pro. But it turns out the big problem was the amount. of RAM: the Pixel 8 has 8 GB, while the Pixel 8 Pro has made the jump to 12 GB. In this way, Google said the Pixel 8 was already obsolete
The good news is that Google has decided to respond to the criticism and continued working to reduce the amount of RAM needed to use the Gemini Nano language model. The result is that Gemini Nano will finally arrive on the Pixel 8as part of the next big update for Pixel phones expected in June.
With this change in plans, Pixel 8 users will have access to two new AI-based features when the update releases. The first is a function capable of write textual summaries of audio files
The second function is that of smart replies, which allows you to choose replies based on the context and that of the Pixel 8 Pro. It already works on WhatsApp and the Google messages app.
This is not the first time that Google has been accused of favoring only users who buy the brand’s latest mobile phone; whatever the price is. Not long ago, the company came under fire again for the strange decision to remove a battery feature from Android 14 to make it exclusive to the upcoming Pixel 8a and future models.
