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Amid fevered internet speculation about the future of AI-powered hardware devices, Google is leading the way into the AI gadget era with the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. Both phones, which launched in October 2023, include a Magic Editor feature that lets users move and resize objects after a photo is taken; AI fills in the missing backdrop based on the surrounding imagery. Best Take, meanwhile, builds a composite image from consecutive photos, letting users pick the best facial expressions from each frame. A feature that uses generative AI to enhance details on zoomed-in photos is coming soon. “Pixel is the best way to deliver Google AI,” says Alexander Schiffhauer, who leads the Pixel’s AI efforts.

“I’ve been a photographer my entire life,” he adds. “Everything I can do in Magic Editor, I can do if you just give me a little extra time in Photoshop. What we’d love to do is enable that for customers.” Adding these features to the Pixel required years of foresight and collaboration across Google’s hardware, AI, and product teams, and the phones use a mix of both on-device processing and cloud computing.

Google’s AI push isn’t limited to photos either. In December, the company updated its Recorder app on the Pixel 8 Pro to summarize audio recordings, and it started experimenting with generative AI reply suggestions in chat apps such as WhatsApp. Both features use an on-device version of Google’s Gemini large language model, running on the company’s custom Tensor G3 chips.

The Pixel line had been gaining traction even prior to its latest releases—Counterpoint reported a 67% increase in global shipments in Q1 2023 alone, driven largely by strong Pixel sales—and Google has made AI features the focal point of its latest ad campaigns for the new Pixels. Schiffhauer says those features are just the beginning of what Google hopes to accomplish on its phones: “AI is going to enable us to move beyond the current interfaces, the current modalities we have in computing today,” he says, “and Pixel will be the manifestation of that.”

Explore the full 2024 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 606 organizations that are reshaping industries and culture. We’ve selected the firms making the biggest impact across 58 categories, including advertising, artificial intelligence, design, sustainability, and more.