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About 50 percent of my photo album is receipts. That is, screenshots of everything I consider even mildly interesting. Whether it\u2019s Uber drivers who never seem to be getting closer, hot tea from my friend\u2019s Instagram Stories or unfathomable email threads, my gallery is full of unexplainable internet detritus. Best of all, just from viewing their thumbnails, I can never know where exactly a specific image is, because walls of text all look the same from afar. So when Google announced its new Pixel Screenshots app at its Made By Google event today, I was excessively excited.<\/p>\n
The Screenshots app launches alongside the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and uses Gemini AI to help locate specific images. After you grant the app access to your photos, the AI will not only ingest files it thinks are screenshots, but also start identifying what\u2019s within each picture.<\/p>\n
On the home page, you\u2019ll see a row at the top called \u201cCollections,\u201d with a series of pre-organized snaps like \u201cGift Ideas,\u201d \u201cBoots\u201d or \u201cPlaces to visit.\u201d These can be curated by yourself or suggested by the system.<\/p>\n
Below this row is a grid of all your most recent captures, and at the bottom is a search bar and a Plus symbol next to it. Pressing that symbol will let you either launch the camera or import a photo from your album. This is helpful for pictures you\u2019ve taken of real-world signs that contain information you want Gemini AI to help remember.<\/p>\n
Tapping each screenshot in this app will expand the image and bring up a title, summary and buttons based on its contents. These are all AI-generated, so if you\u2019re looking at a picture of a music festival\u2019s Instagram post about upcoming dates, the title might say \u201cLollapalooza headline acts\u201d with buttons to add specific events from that picture to your calendar. If you\u2019ve pulled up an image of a restaurant\u2019s website, then Screenshots might offer shortcuts to call the shop or navigate to the business address via Maps.<\/p>\n
From the home page, you can either type into the search bar or tap the microphone icon in it and ask Google for things like \u201cWhat was Sam\u2019s WiFi password?\u201d or \u201cHow much do I owe Cherlynn?\u201d The app will scour your gallery and not only return images with possibly relevant info, but also attempt to answer your question up top. In the demo I saw at a recent hands-on event, a Google rep asked the app \u201cWhen do the tickets for the festival go on sale?\u201d<\/p>\n
Screenshots responded almost instantly by pulling up a picture of a folk festival\u2019s Instagram post, and seconds later showed the words \u201cThe tickets for the festival go on sale on August 5th.\u201d This example was particularly impressive as there were multiple dates noted in the screenshot, one for the ticket sales starting and one for the festival itself kicking off. From the same interface, the company\u2019s rep was able to get the Pixel 9 to set a reminder to buy the tickets in time.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s kind of a coincidence that Google is launching this app today, considering <\/a> also pays extra attention to organizing and filtering out screenshots. My experience of both approaches is extremely limited at the moment, but currently I slightly prefer Google\u2019s Screenshots app. It feels like a more focused and deliberate way to look for information and get help from AI, rather than possibly getting distracted by my million selfies in the Photos app on my iPhone when I\u2019m trying to look for a bank statement, perhaps.<\/p>\n The use of AI to make sense of our screenshots feels like a smart one, though there are of course privacy concerns. Microsoft already had to <\/a> that was supposed to remember everything you were doing on your computer by taking screenshots every few seconds. Google\u2019s Screenshots app uses Gemini Nano, which is its on-device AI model for local processing, and the company says this feature won\u2019t share your screenshots offline (beyond the backups you might already have opted in to via Google Photos).<\/p>\n The Pixel Screenshots app will be on the Pixel 9 family at launch, and the company has nothing to share on wider availability at the moment. But based on how Google has launched and rolled out apps like Recorder in the past, it\u2019s likely that older Pixel devices will get Screenshots in time, as long as it\u2019s received well by users.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n