Pixelated - Hey Gemini, Order Me a Pizza

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

Welcome to episode 90 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, Abner, Damien, and Will talk through the launch of the Galaxy S26 series, all of its various Pixel-inspired AI tools, and ask whether it's too boring of an upgrade for Samsung. They also discuss Google's newly-announced agentic features for Android, with support for ordering groceries, deliveries, and more, ahead of next month's release. Subscribe YouTube Podcasts Pocket Casts Spotify Apple Podcasts Overcast Sponsored by Proton Unlimited: Pixelated listeners can save 30% on an annual subscription by signing up for Proton Unlimited using this link. Thanks to Proton Unlimited for sponsoring this week's episode. Timecodes 00:00 – Intro 01:57 - Galaxy S26 launch 18:03 - Samsung's AI features 28:40 - Agentic Android 40:10 - Final Privacy Display thoughts and wrap-up Hosts Abner Li Damien Wilde Will Sattelberg Read more Samsung launches Galaxy S26 series, and higher prices are basically all that’s new Galaxy S26 series hands-on: More of the same, but not in a good way [Video] The Galaxy S26 Ultra is thinner and more rounded than ever, and I love it [Gallery] Samsung is cloning Pixel features for the Galaxy AI suite on S26 Galaxy S26 ‘Now Nudge’ is basically Google Pixel’s Magic Cue, but you’re forced to use Samsung Keyboard Samsung says the Galaxy S26 will ‘simplify your day’ through Galaxy AI, but can it? Gemini automation on Pixel 10, S26 can book rides and place orders  Listen to more 9to5 Podcasts The Sideload 9to5Mac Happy Hour Electrek Space Explored Feedback? Drop us a line at [e-mail], leave a comment on the post, or reach out to our producer. And for even more Android discussion, dive into the official 9to5Google forums!

Switching your apps and services is about as much fun as switching banks, especially when you don't have any issues with your current providers to begin with. But Proton is worth switching for. With a privacy-first ecosystem of services available on practically every platform, Proton offers email, calendar, file storage, VPN, password management, and document editing. Built with class-leading end-to-end encryption, Proton services are fast, intuitive, and secure. And if you're worried about switching, Proton has export tools that bring over your emails, files, and passwords, and just a few clicks. For Pixelated listeners, Proton is offering 30% off an annual subscription to Proton Unlimited. Just visit Proton.me slash 9 to 5 Google or click the link in the show notes to learn more.

That's Proton.com.me slash 9 to5 Google. Welcome to Pixelated Episode 90. I'm your host, Will Saddleberg. This week, we're talking all about the newly unveiled Galaxy S&S 26, a very odd trio of smartphones that combines and improved S26 Ultra with two other phones that feel maybe just a little too familiar. From the Ultra's privacy screen to Samsung's price increases, we're covering it all. Plus, Google is launching its first ever agentic tools on the S26 and Pixel 10, and we break

down exactly what to expect from these integrations. It's all coming up. Well, hello, gentlemen. We are talking hardware again this week. A little bit of a... Probably the... It's the biggest... It's the biggest phone in Android, isn't it?

When we talk Galaxy, we talk S26, we talk S25, whatever it is. People sit up and take notice. I've spent a little bit of time with these. There's some really interesting stuff going on. There's a little bit of maybe... Samsung finally starting to copy Google's homework rather than the other way around. I don't know.

What do you guys think so far now? We've actually seen them in the flesh. Yeah. It's weird to have the same issue we kind of just had with the 10A when you were talking about the pixel 10A. But also the leaks kind of prepared us for this. So I guess it's just the safest place to start is like, we've more or less seen these devices, right?

Like they are relatively unchanged from last year. Very, very small design changes. The altars a little curvier, which they've been, you know, kind of bit like every, like every generation, they just make it a little bit softer to hold. And then they have this slightly new, but also kind of throwback to a few generations ago camera model. that once again gives it like an entire plateau.

You know, spec bumps. Those are there, right? New processor, all that stuff. But like, largely speaking, the story of these phones is either it's their pricing, which we can maybe save for a moment or one UI 8.5 and Galaxy AI, right? I think that's kind of how Samsung wants you to consider these aside from, you know, I mean, even like the privacy display, which we'll get to on the Ultra, is sort of a software.

It's using the hardware, but it is also sort of a software feature. Yeah, it is weird, isn't it, with the lens of the 10A? I do wonder if this, I mean, obviously, this is the biggest, technically the biggest phone launcher of the year so far, which is still what we're in its infancy. Does it set the scene for the rest of the year? I feel like it does. I feel like we kind of, does this screen peak,

smartphone more than any other time at any other point. Like it definitely feels like that. I don't know if there's maybe a little bit of a less of a crescendo around it like they used to be. Honesty, like we're expecting the pixel 11 to look the same for at least one more year. So there's that. So there is a lot of repetition in that regards. We'll talk about the software in a bit, but it's a software year for everybody.

Yeah. Yeah. It is weird, isn't it? like we've kind of seen this, we've kind of seen this shift, haven't we, with Samsung? I think, and you mentioned that,

I mean, not being, if we're going to be critical of Samsung, we have to be critical at Google as well, is that Samsung is kind of like iterated on this design for almost, I mean, I don't want to count the S-20 Ultra in that because it was slightly different looking,

and I think that's still the best-looking Samsung phone, in my opinion. Was it the S-20 Ultra? S-21, sorry. That was like the first shift into this design they've kind of iterated on. It's been half a decade of this core design and this core layout. And like, you know, the rumors around this cycle were that this was the year that it was going

to get a bit of a shakeup. We were going to replace the plus with an edge. And we were going to get whatever the S-26 Pro was supposed to be replacing the small one, maybe with some camera upgrades. And all of that went out the window last fall when it was like the edge, the S-25 edge, it failed and the, you know, the iPhone 17's pricing was insane for what they were offered. They gave a massive upgrade to that base model without changing the price. And the RAM shortage kicked off.

And all of this kind of balled up into a like, never mind, never mind, scrap it. Let's go back and like just do what we know how to do well. And so we get a boring hardware cycle, which I expect, you know, not to look big picture so early, but like that that is sort of the future of smartphones that aren't foldables, right? Like I, it's interesting, you know, you can say, oh, this, we've had this design for about, you know, five generations or so. And that's true. But even really, if you go back to like the Galaxy S8, the core of what these phones are is there. Like, they're, you know, tall screens with minimal bezels and, you know, like, we haven't really, like, once the bezels started to disappear and we got these, like, large tall screens on every device, it's been a decade of, like, roughly similar hardware. And so all we've done really is kind of go away from, like, having new camera designs or new, new, slightly new, like tweaks every generation. and now it's just like that thing we did last year, we've tweaked it 5%.

You know, if you're lucky, 10%. And it's a new phone. And you don't care because most people are upgrading every three to five years instead of every two, like they did a decade ago. Yeah, I mean, I don't think, I don't have a problem with something sticking with a design that they know work. So I quite like that. I quite like the idea that they are confident in their design.

And I think their hardware is, let's be completely honest, it's probably some of the best period. I think it slaps. 100%. I think it actually is better than the iPhone in a lot of ways. Like that, a hardware quality. Maybe the air is kind of impressive because you can't snap it,

but I do genuinely think that Samsung's machining and everything that they do with their phones is genuinely top tier. It's elite. But I'm kind of, my biggest woes so far, having used them for a little bit, I don't know if you guys have any questions to me about that, is that something really hasn't,

they haven't looked at what is going wrong on their phones potentially. So for me, for me, the camera upgrades or lack thereof over the last three or four years have felt a little bit short-sighted because we know that Google's MO is we're going to refine with software. We're going to refine with enhancements in that regard, maybe integrate AI and improve it that way. I don't necessarily think Samsung is doing that as much on their camera side of things.

Because they put in a lot of hardware-related features, like obviously log profile, that kind of stuff, which is how many kid I go, it's technically software. They put a lot of these really cool features in their space zoom. But it's almost like they've wrested on the laurels a bit. It's all like tuning as opposed to actual enhancements with stuff. And the lack of a camera upgrade on specifically the S, I mean, I'm going to look at the Ultra.

We'll talk a little bit more about the Ultra in just a second, but the S-26 and the S-26 plus genuinely, to me, scream the laziest, there's two of the laziest phones on the market period. We've, well, we can't not mention the 10A, but then again, I think the 10A is a slightly different phone in a different price bracket. If you are Samsung selling the S26 and the S26 plus for the remainder of this year, potentially 18 months it's going to be in their product portfolio, they are going toe to toe with the base model from Apple, specifically the optics of this, which has made the iPhone 17 arguably the best base model that you can go out and buy,

whether whichever side of the fence you fall upon. I'm... Certainly of a flagship, yeah. Yeah, like 800 bucks. It's no longer the like, nerfed package once was where you're putting up with an older 60 hertz display that doesn't support always on display. That's fixed. It's a great panel.

You know, the battery life is excellent. It's got, it starts at 256 gigabytes of storage, which the pixel can't say Samsung can, but their phone is now $100 more. So it's, you know, it, it actually feels a little bit like how the laptops feel where it's like, I woke up one day and I was like, wait a minute, the MacBook Air is the best value in laptops right now? Like what happened? And like a little bit the same on the iPhone side where suddenly if you're looking for a flagship, it's, it's going to be, you know, the pixel 10 and the S26 both have obvious shortcomings on a spec sheet. compared to the iPhone.

And that's, it doesn't always happen. In fact, it frequently doesn't happen that the iPhone is overpriced or you're paying more for, you know, to get a comparable experience.

And on the flagship side, that's just not true this year. Yeah, it definitely feels, it definitely feels as though they've dropped the ball a little bit. And it's been four years of this. We've had S-22 through to S-26 now where it is literally just a chip bump,

maybe some minor changes to the battery size. But I just think, I think if you're looking at the, It almost screams that Samsung is focused on their ultra devices, but that has had minor upgrades. I wonder if they're running out of kind of, I don't want to say Steam, it's not the way. There's less runway for them to go with the ultra lineup now

because they kind of went out hard with that to try and make this phone that is going to be the best in every single area. I'm kind of, like, regardless of what actually happens with sales and stuff, they've got big boots to fill because the S-25 series did so well. Yes. I'm kind of concerned for the S-26. I'm genuinely, I'm not even joking. I think that in a year where Abner has alluded to,

it is software-focused. Yeah. Looking, they've looked elsewhere, they've looked elsewhere for their ideas, which usually has never been the case with Samsung. It's almost like they're running out of these ideas that they used to have. But, yeah, I mean, let's get into them, and I'll talk a little bit about the Ultras specifically,

because I think towards the end, because I think it probably deserves it sounds. Real quick, I just, the Ultra is what Samsung wants you to buy. There is, it is, it is, It feels very specific that the regular S-26 and the S-26 plus got a price hike and the Ultra didn't. It feels, Samsung obviously wants to drive its consumers to either picking up the Ultra or maybe even looking upmarket to a foldable. And I think that language comes through pretty clearly in these price hikes. So let's, yeah, let's focus a little bit in our conversation on the Ultra just because there's a bunch of ultra specific things.

And then the software conversation applies to all three phones. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, but I like that idea. So my time with the S-26 Ultra, I've been one of these people who was more or less converted to Samsung last year. I used Samsung for a long time in the past. I was a big note user, a big proponent of them, always had problems with one UI. I think last year the S-25 Ultra was the hardware changes were, I'm not going to say they were massively notable. They made a bit change to grip and stuff like that. I like the flat screen, the purely flat screen and the flatter edges.

I think that was fantastic. One UI-7. Was it one UI-7? One Ui-7 kind of carried the entire thing. It was the vehicle for it. It was the first place you could get it. It was the best way to experience it. I think that changed my opinion drastically of what a Samsung flagship was.

I'm protesting that my, I think, one U.I.7 is derivative, and there's so many iOS touches that should drive any. Andoid user crazy. Can I fall right in between the two of you? Damien, I had the same reaction to you, but then eventually found myself on Abner's side because it was like, in the moment you're like, great, all new, fixing a bunch of issues. And then, yeah, quickly you were like, oh, wait, am I just excited because this has a proper app drawer now?

And the answer was, yeah, that was exactly what it was for me. Well, I've been thoroughly put in my place. I was a big fan. I think for years, I kind of equated one UI to a job. mess of just all these differing things thrown at the wall and then whatever sticks, for me, the 1UI 7 felt like the first time there was a lot more cohesive elements in there and I could actually jazz with it. I don't know.

Okay. When I think of 1UI over the years, the thing that has permanently stuck to me is the idea that there's like gigantic headers up top so that content is pushed down the screen and it's easy to access, let's say, in your messages. In practice, I think some people hate that, that they despise that in messages specific, Google messages specifically, they despise that it's not full screen by default and they have to swipe up just a little bit. But that to me has been the defining design goal.

And I don't know if they're really pushing that anymore. Yeah, it doesn't feel like that. But this is a thing. I think it kind of ties into what I'm trying to say is that with the S-26 Ultra, there isn't a one UI8.5 massive overhaul that you can kind of carry the device. Do you know what I mean? Like the first thing I did was I picked it up

was, and having spent the vast majority of the last 12 months flip-fopping between either the 1 plus 13, the S-25 Ultra and now the Pixel 10 Pro Xcel and the Pixel 10 Pro to a lesser extent, because the battery is not quite as nice. I'm kind of like, yeah, I can't even put it into words. It's like, nah, does that make sense? It was like the first thing I did when I picked it up was,

okay, you've changed a few, you made a few minor hardware changes, probably going to be nice. But then there is no big overhaul to carry it through to maybe, I don't know. I mean, obviously, it is, and again, I think I'm looking through

the optics of someone who's been in this industry for a long time, is that this is, whether or not people like me saying this out loud, this is the standard bearer for Android, period. If you go into a carrier store as anywhere on the planet, this is the phone that every other Android is going to be measured up against. It's just a way to,

it is. And it doesn't feel like it, I don't know, it just doesn't have that, I don't know, you're gonna say quiet, you know what I mean? Let me, let me put it this way. I think, I think I can, I think I can help you out. The S-26 Ultras, like, in my opinion, its coolest feature is privacy display, right? Yes. We've hinted at two times now already, so I'm gonna describe it. It's, it is essentially recreating like those film-based screen protector, privacy screen protectors, but on the software side, and it is using, I, I didn't get a briefing from Yeah, it's like a sub-pixel, so effectively it turns off certain pixels on the display. It's really smart and it can hide just notifications or like the entire, you know,

it can help obscure the entire display on an angle. Like, yeah, it's a really cool thing that we haven't, you know, we've seen hints that other manufacturers are playing around with this, but we have not seen this from anybody else. This is completely fresh as far as I know. I think it's really cool. I also think it has a ceiling of converting dozens of people to us. upgrade this phone. Like, nobody's going to run out and buy this device, be just, just on the strength of privacy display, which is a problem when it's the coolest feature instead of the eighth

coolest feature. Yeah, it is, I will say in person when you see this for the first time, it is very, very impressive. I think for most, it's a, sure, but it's kind of a nice to have, not a need to have. Yeah, I mean, you can get, you can put a screen protector on your phone and get the same experience. So it's, yes, you might diminish the, the quality of display, and this doesn't do that as much. I think Samsung has done some fantastic things for displays. I think they still make the best.

The anti-clare coating is something I want to see on more phones. They need to bring it to the rest of the lineup at this point because this is year three now. And this is a problem. This is a problem going back to the S-26 and S-26 plus. They don't have any of this. So why do they... And their prices are higher. It's like what are like, come on.

You know? Like the advancements of a slightly larger battery on on the regular S-26. And I actually don't know what's new on the hardware side and the plus. I think it's slightly faster charging speeds. I think it supports 45-wons now. Like, come on, man.

Yeah, and it's actually, it's actually Ex-Nus in the rest of the world. So those of us, like me in the UK, we would get an X-Nus chip, whereas last year you get a snapfraggin chip. So it's kind of, this is a thing. I think Samsung was inadvertently, all purposefully, made this massive chasm between their base flagships. because they are. They are,

it is their flag bearer, it is their biggest device, period. The S-26 now has this massive chasm between the S-26, S-26 plus, and now the Ultra, and it has never been more obvious that they want to sell the Ultra,

but then the obvious sales tactic for the Ultra is, we have a new screen. Can you see why I am kind of like trying to quantify what I mean? But regardless, I know for a fact, once I get to use one of these for a few hours or for a couple of weeks,

I probably will fall in love with the hardware. Maybe I won't fall in love with the software because I do think OneUI has gone a slightly different direction compared to OneUI 7. But let's talk about a few of the things that I think probably do make up for some of the problems we're facing here.

Samsung has flat out said, okay, we're going to integrate some pixel features into Galaxy AI. I like the idea. One of the two of the implementations I think are better than the way Google's done it. But I don't necessarily think that, again, I think pixels still does a lot of these a little bit better than Samsung and they probably always will.

Yeah, which one do you want to start with? Which one do you think has won you over? Okay, let's talk about the screenshots one. The AI screenshot organization that is built into the Samsung Gallery application, which I quite like the Samsung Gallery app actually. It is fantastic. The way that they've done the organization feels a little bit better and a little bit more, how would I describe it, streamlined than the way Pixel's screenshots does it. And pixel screenshots is a fantastic app. I love it. I use every single probably day, day or two for like receipts. My gym, my gym logging code is saved there as a pin code to get in and out of the gym. I love it. But the way that Samsung's done it is a little bit

better because it feels like more in tune with the kind of ways you would use it. I don't necessarily, you have to kind of, for me, I've integrated pixel screenshots into the way I use my phone. whereas I know Abner is a big fan of using Google Photos, if they just put Pixel Screenshots in Google Photos, wouldn't it make a lot more sense? I don't know if that's just... No, honestly, the functionality is already there. If you use Asphot photos and Google Photos,

the Gemini-powered chatbot thing, it's the full functionality of pixel screenshots. And to your point, pixel screenshots level functionality will eventually become table stakes and Samsung is the first to show that. It will be available on all Android devices

and if the way for Google to do that is to put it in Google photos properly. So to give Samsung props on UI stuff and UX stuff putting a screenshot tab in the

gallery, that's just a smart idea, that's a good idea. It's where people treat all their photos is the same thing, screenshots, camera photos, etc. So that's a good UX thing on them to do. And I wouldn't be surprised if Google Photos eventually gets there. Yeah, it just feels like the obvious step, doesn't it? It feels, and at the same time, I will say that I used a couple of devices that weren't

connected to the internet and it was still able to do a lot of the categorization on device. I can't remember if it can do that on pixel phones? Can it do that without an internet connection? It is an on-device model. Yeah, it is on-device models, both of them. And again, with Google Photos, it would be more powerful since it's cloud-based. Yeah, I mean, it makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Yeah.

So that one got a massive thumbs up from me. There was a couple of other features that, sadly, I don't know, again, this was due to the network conditions and not having Google accounts properly logged into these devices. I wasn't able to get a good feel for. but the call screening didn't work, no SIM card, no SIMs in there. I mean, it's crazy to me that Samsung has had live translation on phone calls with the Samsung phone app but didn't have call screening. Like, how long has Google had this now, like five years maybe of some form?

Longer, it feels, that feels like a pre-COVID feature to me. Like, without looking at like gut-check, I feel like I had that on my pixel too. Yeah, pixel 3-ish, it was... Yeah. That is crazy to think that Samsung would not look at that and think, because obviously they have no shame in looking at what other people are doing and taking them. It's just almost like they've never really looked beyond Apple. They've always kind of be like, oh, Google are doing that.

We're partners with them, but we'll leave them to their own thing. And it just feels like maybe they're like, oh, yeah, that's a really good feature. That's a really good feature to have us, Galaxy AI. It'll be good for... So much, so much of these devices can be boiled down to like, yep, that's, that is great for like your average run of the mill, like galaxy S user. But like, from a tech press perspective, it is so difficult to get excited for this because it's like, oh, so much of this is either we've seen it before or it's like, you want like, you want me to applaud call screening? As we just said, like, it's Google's had this since like 2018, like eight years. I'm not going to like stand up and give you like a standing ovation for this.

It's good to see it. I'm glad that like when I'm on a Samsung phone or like my friends who have Samsung phones, they will get, you know, they will have a better phone call experience. But if you're just going to copy this, you could have done this five, six, seven years ago. Like, why did you wait? I don't know. That's where I'm at. I mean, it works in the exact same way as well, which makes it even weird.

It's like, right. You didn't bring anything new. It's the exact same. I mean, I don't know if, I can't even remember now off the top of my head because I obviously turn phones off for the recording this podcast. I don't even know if Samsung defaults to the Google dialer now in some regions.

So does that mean that you have to revert to the Samsung dialer now again? It's going to be confusing, I think, for a lot of people, if you have to use, change your application to get some of these features, I think that's probably one of the few, I guess, sticking points. On my Fold 7, it's still a Samsung dialer.

So at the very least. Yeah, okay. So that could be a problem for some people, especially if you were maybe wanting to be a convert somewhere else. I don't know. It's another one of those nice to haves. It fills out the Galaxy AI suite, which follows a little bit paper thin.

As for more, I guess, pixel features, image generation isn't anything new, but they have added an application called, I think it's Creative Spurs. I believe it's creation, creation studio. Creation Studio, yes. Yeah. I mean, this is just Pixel Studio again, repackaged.

Even down to the name is almost there. I think Samsung would have wanted it's called like Galaxy AI Studio or something like that. This was one of those ones. Sadly, I couldn't get it working in person. Yeah. But it felt the experience was the exact same, exact same UI. The only upside is you can say. I don't think I've opened Pixel Studio in sense.

I don't know. Okay. was August 2024, October, 24. Like, you know, it's great. I don't feel like image generation and image text-based image. I want to say editing, but that's not really, this is really made to just, like, do silly things with your photos. And so that sounds a little more professional than it is.

But it, again, it's, you know, there are lots of ways to do this. I mean, you can basically just do this with nanobanana right now. So, again, it's cool. It's here, I guess. but that Samsung users have not been, you know, want for options, even on their devices. Yeah, I think the only upside is that there's a few little extra S-pen-specific generation things that you can do that you can't do on pixel, obviously, because it doesn't support an S-pen. So maybe it feels like one last bone being thrown at the S-pen ahead of that

potentially disappearing in the next couple of years. It would not surprise me. It's even black and white now. It's like it's fading into an in-memorium. But like, again, I do think that Google can kind of rug pull a lot of these features by just integrating them into other areas, like with Google Photos, potentially putting it in G-Bord, which I think I wrote something about 18, 20 months ago talking about this, hoping it eventually comes to G-board. So I don't know if that's ever going to come to fruition, but kind of thought by this point, it would have happened, but it is what it is.

is it going to sell phones? Probably not. Like you say, nano-bananas doing it already in a web browser, so you're going to get better image generation over there anyway. Well,

effectively the same. Continuing with Pixel 10 features that we've seen, like it almost feels like that reruns bit in Back to the future. Basically, this is,

this is, now Nudge is Magic Q, but for Samsung phones, providing you use the Samsung keyboard. And the only thing I can see where I think this works a little bit better in the previews I've seen is, it works in more applications.

So it's not just first-party Google apps where this is viable. You can use it in WhatsApp, which I'm in the UK. I'm a big WhatsApp user. And there's a few other email applications it works in as well, I think. Like, that makes a lot of sense to... But you have to use Samsung Google. Yeah, that's right. Like, I think there are a lot of, again, you know,

it's tricky to talk about this from a tech press perspective or even an enthusiast perspective versus run-of-the-mill phone. buyer. I think most people who are picking up a galaxy device, like, especially from carriers or whatever, that's just the track they've been on for 15 years. They probably don't change the keyboard, and so this is good for them. I assume

all of us are, like, even when we're on devices where it's not pre-installed, like, we go out of our way to grab Gboard because it's a really good keyboard app. And so if you switch to Gboard on your S-26 Ultra, you're not going to get this anymore. Yeah. Is anyone going to make this?

I mean, for the average person on the street, I think a lot of people don't tend to switch their keyboard. Exactly. That's exactly what I'm like. I think this is good for regular people, but like, Damien, I want to be excited for you, but I'm like, Damien,

I know you're going to switch to keyboard. I know, that's it. This is a thing. But again, I wonder, I wonder how much Google has been talking about this with Samsung behind closed doors of like, oh, how do we integrate this so that it doesn't diminish what we do on pixel.

Yeah, everything feels like a little bit of, a bit of a, how do we dull the sheen for this potential function by tying it to Samsung somehow what it doesn't need to be. You just make it system level. But then again, if it's system level, then you're just going to buy pixel because it's going to work with it. Yeah. So, I don't know.

I don't know. It looked really good. I kind of like the fact that it will work with that, but there's no chance I'm going to. to switch to Samsung keyboard for an extended period of time when G-Bad works so well. So that's the Samsung stuff. Google does have its contributions this year, and the main thing they're announcing is Gemini Automation. At least they're using the word automation to describe tasks, multi-step tasks that Gemini can handle for you. So the examples are booking a lied,

ordering groceries, food, etc, that kind of stuff. Food, ride shares, and I've got the other category. But anyways, it's the apps like Uber, Door Dash, Grubhub, etc. Those kinds of apps.

So you basically just ask Gemini to book you a ride and then it opens this secure window is how they're calling it. It's a, it happens on your phone. But the screenshots are sent to the cloud, which is how all this works. Like in Gemini, auto browse and Gemini agent.

So, yeah, it's a secure window. Gemini will tap, touch, and scroll for you. Type. Yeah, so it is automation. It is something we've been waiting for since Google announced, previewed it with Astra last year, but it's now here, and I'm very curious. We've had, again, we've had automation with auto browse in Gemini and Chrome that just launched a few weeks ago, and I'm very curious how people come to use it on mobile. I don't know. I'm kind of, I mean, you can hear my voice.

I'm kind of still like 50-50 on whether I trust Gemini to go through the entire process with me to start making purchases. I guess. I guess I would have to sit over the top of it and be like, whoa, don't be doing this. Do you know what I mean? So at the final step, like with all these automation tools, you're the one who has to tap to purchase. You're the one who authorizes the Google Pay. You authorize you book the actual Uber ride, etc., etc. But you can preview the entire experience. You can see, you can take over it any time. and the official disclaimer is that you should watch over

sensitive tasks, etc., etc. But I do think, like the start of chatbots, I do kind of think this is almost a reset in user expectations. Like, I somewhat don't think that the trust that people have built up with Gemini, with chat GPT,

with chat bots, will translate to this screen. in automation to these you're controlling your actual apps so I think like you said I think we'll be watching it like a hawk the first few times and just seeing the novelty of it

and seeing how it works then after a few times that it does work hopefully that you begin to trust it but just other disclaimers here it only accesses this one app it can't access your entire phone it's strictly you grant access to one

app at the time. Gemini is using one app at the time. You can end the action at any time. It's opt-in. So, yeah, at the start of this, it is a very focused on these food, white share, grocery. It's very specific right now. And so far from what I've seen in how they're announcing this, they're very careful and they realize there is a trust gap here. And then this is launching first on the S-26 and the pixel 10? 10. Is it every single pixel 10 or just from pixel 10? 10-10 pro?

10-pro, right? Yeah. I mean... Which is whatever. But yeah, it's coming in March. I do feel like... I do feel like this is the kind of things we wanted to see for a while, these automation things. But at the same time, I'm like, maybe I'm in the...

I don't know if I'm in the minority actually with this. I think a lot of people still would be wary of giving up seeding control at any step of the process. I don't know. I could maybe see myself doing it with Uber and things like that. But at the same time. Yeah, I think Uber is kind of, yeah. Yeah. I think I'm a customer market shopping.

I'm not always having 100% certain. Unless it, I mean, I guess. Was there any mention? No. Maybe food orders, yes. Yeah. Maybe. What about, did it mention anything like ticket?

master and things like that. Because I know we talked about it in the podcast before. Oh, that's such a shame. I feel like that's the perfect way to do it. Like, get me these tickets when they're available. I think it's, I think it's only in the US, but Google AI mode has some of that stuff,

which is a bit fragmented, but whatever. Yeah, that's a shame. This one's so tricky. It's like, on one hand, I'm like, I don't personally see a lot of utility for me on this. I agree with you both that Uber is the obvious candidate here because it's the one that is

the, least amount of voice commands that you have to give, right? You're going to be, you're going to say, I need to go to blank in blank amount of time call on Uber or whatever and it's going to do it versus I want to order pizza from my favorite pizza place. I want the pizza to have, I want it to be large and I wanted to have these toppings on it. I also want to get an order of 20 chicken wings.

And like, it's just so many words for a DoorDash order. And then groceries, I think even more so, right? You're just going to read your grocery list to. If you have your grocery list on your phone, maybe you can talk to the patient. That could be good. So the example that Google had was, so you are ordering food, you're in Google messages,

you have a text thread, people say what they want, and then you activate Gemini to summarize. You first have Gemini summarize what everybody wants. You make sure that's right. And you say, order this on DoorDash,

Grubhub from X such and such a pizza. place or whatever. And then it's, so I would trust it to understand a shopping risk. I, I, even more trusted to convert what people want, what they say they want in the message, in

messages. So that's the part I trust. It's just any, I think anything that issues payment with money, that is your concern right there. Well, also, the process you just described doesn't sound, to me it sounds slower than starting

a group order in something like DoorDash. Like DoorDash supports, you just send a link to your friends and then they just do what they want in the app and you don't have to talk to them at all about it. So like it's one of those, like, it's a weird example for Google to give because it sounds more convoluted. But my point, my larger point is not to be entirely dismissive. It's to say to Damien's point, you have to start somewhere and I get that these are probably the easiest ways to build agentic steps into the process, right?

like none of these are, they all have like very set user interfaces. They're, they're, um, they're nationally available apps. They're, uh, you know, you're going through a similar process every single time as opposed to something like, even at something like ticket master, it's like there are, you know, is it going to select a seat for me? Does it know my seat preference and so on and so forth? And so I can, I can acknowledge that like the stuff I would care about is, is presumably coming down the road and Google has to start somewhere. And if these work, you know,

fairly flawlessly, that's good. But, but, you know, at the same time, I just can't at this stage seeing myself doing it, especially when these are relatively quick tasks that you still have to come back to and complete. So even if I'm putting my phone in my pocket, I'm pulling it out two minutes later to approve the DoorDash order. I don't know. Same with like, what app am I jumping back into Instagram, I guess. The thing I should add, yes, you can use your phone to do anything else while this is happening. You can send an email, send a text message, press Instagram while what happens in the background, and you have a notification telling you that.

That's going to be better when there are longer tasks, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I'm still, I guess, maybe we're overthinking it. Maybe people are willing to put the trust in these tools probably more than we anticipate. I mean, I guess. I think it takes time I think this is like I said

this is a reset from chatbots I think maybe some of that trust and expectations get transported over because it is the same Gemini interface people are familiar with but I do think this is a reset it requires a few times

for this to work but then after that point I think it does become normal so I'm a bit more bullish there I think I'm curious to see how specific you're going to be because I just had the vision

of like saying, you know, let's say you're not going to, let's say you're not going to a restaurant in Uber, but you're actually going home or maybe you're going to a friend's house and you, you give it the address, but you're not specific enough and it takes you, you know, even in a relatively smallish metro area like Buffalo, like there are repeating road names in different parts of the city, right? Like a suburb 15 or, you know, 10 miles away has a different, has the same. I would be curious to see because like Google Maps makes that mistake sometimes it it will you'll you'll tap the wrong location and not know until until you're like it shouldn't take me 25 minutes to get there and i'm i'm you know if you're not paying attention when you go to complete the the purchase you can end up uvering halfway

across you know at your case abner l.a and then god knows where so i'm just curious to see if if in the in the weeks after this launches we hear stories like that or maybe we don't and this is like rock solid. I'm just like, I have my eyes on it, you know? Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure Google will be working on this. And obviously, I'm guessing if it launches first on pixel 10 and then S-26, all these people will be getting their new devices. I think release date is March 11th. Yes. March 11th units will be available when it hits store shelves and the pixel launch is, pixel 10 watch is coming in February, in March, in March. Yeah. So there's going to to be quite a lot of people potentially, a big pool of people's testing.

It is starting as a beta. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. As long as it's explicit. Yeah, there was a lot. There is a lot of stuff there that seems to be, I mean, we've mentioned software, is the year of software, especially in Android. Definitely feels as though they're leaning even more into,

and if Samsung are doing it with their Galaxy Eye suite and then utilizing Gemini as well with the help of Google even more, it is a strange year for phones. it does feel like that's all we're going to be seeing is these rehashes of pixel features that we've seen over the past. But what, since Pixel 3 era? I mean, if everybody starts getting core screening, it's going to feel even more like a revival of old features that we've seen for a long, long time. I just want to touch a little bit on the privacy screen before we head off, because I think this is the one true killer feature of the S-26 ultra.

And so what only thing that when I've spoken to people who went to the hands-on sessions and stuff, this was the only thing that came out of everything was like, oh, what do you think? The privacy scheme is really cool, but everything else feels kind of really similar. I really like this concept. I like the idea that Samsung is taking some level of privacy seriously, whether or not it's just somebody sat next to you on the train. That's fine. I would love to see this come to more devices,

but I think it isn't going to be the one thing that sells it to most people. I just can't see it happening. No. It's smart, though. I think it's really, like, I don't want to downplay it too much because I think it's really cool. And I think like, I was thinking about like when you go to a like any kind of sports event or a concert and like, you know, look, I'm not saying that you're sending like inappropriate text messages at a concert or something. Although certainly people have and have been caught and like people have seen over their shoulder. But like it's more so like, look, like maybe I just don't want the person, you know, six inches behind me like looking at my phone the entire night while I'm like, you know, waiting for the next act to come on like in between an opener and a, in the main, you know, headliner. something like that. Like, I think that's really, that's like, an idea that you look at and you're like, I see the vision here.

Yeah, on that, I think it's great for potentially people taking pictures at concerts because from a, from a, like a right angle or, it's quite an acute angle, actually, to be fair. You can't see their display, so it's not like blaring in your face. You're not seeing a white, it's not as distracting. So I think in that respect, it isn't, it's not just a privacy thing. It's like a public decency thing. It's like I don't want my experience ruin because you have to take a million photos.

So yeah, I'd love to see more brands do this. First and foremost, we need to get people putting them anti-glare displays on. So that's top of my list. If Samsung's copying Google, I want Google to copy a few of Samsung's hardware features. So that was kind of like my final thought. Let's see privacy display on pixels.

Let's see anti-glare displays as well. And maybe a little bit more high-quality hardware. but yeah, S-26 series, I don't want to say it's a bust because I know I'm going to change my opinion when I start to use these phones. But yeah, maybe not as exciting as people are hoping for. So, yeah, if you can stomach paying nearly $1,300 for a phone, go get it. I think the pre-order deals are quite good this year again, but for all intents and purposes, it's the same again. But yeah, hopefully we see some more cool stuff in the coming months. excited to see what develops with

with 1UI 9 as well in the future but yeah thanks for listening guys and thanks for joining me as well I know it's been a bit of a Samsung heavy episode which we don't do very often I think S-26 S-25 Edge was the last time we really laid into Samsung so yeah

they deserve a little bit of a kicking after this launch but it is what it is thanks guys and I'll speak to you soon bye bye thanks for listening to Pixelated a 9 to 5 Google podcast If you enjoyed the show, we ask that you rate and review it on the podcast platform of your choice

and help spread the word by sharing the show with friends or on social media.