Transcript

Stephanie (00:00:00)
I've also particularly loved Reimagine for pictures of pets. 'cause oftentimes you'll catch them doing something really cute, but maybe it's not in the cutest setting. It might be like in a bathroom or something. And so you can change the background out for something that maybe is a little bit more fun. Sometimes you can go completely wild. I've sent my cat to outer space, I've sent it to a volcano. I've tried things like the surface of the moon. And so it's really one that lets you unleash your creativity onto your photo.

Rachid (00:00:49)
Stephanie, imagine you're all alone stuck on an island with just one phone. Which one would you pick? A Pixel 9, a Pixel 9 Pro, or a Pixel 9 Pro XL?

Stephanie (00:00:58)
If I were stuck on an island with just one phone, I'd definitely have to go with the Pixel 9 Pro XL. Just that big screen for entertaining myself on the island. Of course, the amazing cameras for looking beyond the horizon. We've got some great new features this year that might come in handy, like SOS calling even when you're out of range. So I think it would actually be a great phone for that use case.

Rachid (00:01:19) That's exactly great when you're stuck on an island for sure. Well, you're a product manager for our Pro phones, so I wasn't entirely surprised you would pick one of the Pro phones. So a product manager, how would you explain to family and friends what it is you do?

Stephanie (00:01:32)
I'm a product manager and in terms of thinking about my job, I think about what we should build and why. And so that's a really fun combination for me of thinking and considering new technology on the horizon and how to make it most valuable for users, particularly on phones. It's really a combination of the latest technology but also human factors. So thinking about the human side of the phone, the size of the phone, what color it should be, how it should feel in hand to also the more technical side, things like the compute, working with the tensor team very closely thinking about gigs of ram are very important cameras and then of course battery life phones are really this unique blend of both the very personal and the technical.

Rachid (00:02:14)
Yeah, we'll get to all of those topics, but a little bit more about you first. You have a history in engineering and mechanical engineering. Mm-Hmm . How did it come about? What sparked that interest?

Stephanie (00:02:24)
I absolutely love to build amazing products in terms of sparking that interest. I actually have to give a lot of credit to my grandfather. He was a builder. He actually did a lot of carpentry and woodwork and so he sort of taught me this love of building and that you can make beautiful things from very simple wood at a young age. I also continued to love to build and make, so I volunteered at a science museum through high school actually trying to explain very complex science topics very simply to children with things that you find in your household. And so that was fun for me to be able to think about how to make, make new concepts in tech really delightful.

Rachid (00:03:01)
So what kind of things were you building? Like sorting toys out of those household items? Well, I'm not entirely sure what you built in that time.

Stephanie (00:03:09)
We were taking all sorts of scientific concepts and trying to make them simple and easy for kids to understand, but we only wanted to use household items. So we made a ton of, you know, boats out of corks or race cars, out of film capsules, things like that. A lot of rubber band cars, paper rockets, just all sorts of creative ideas.

Rachid (00:03:28)
Amazing. Now let's get to the Pixel phones of this year. Pixel 9. Pixel 9 Pros still look very much like a Pixel phone, but still it changed quite considerably in terms of design. So could you explain what changed and why was it changed?

Stephanie (00:03:42)
That's a great question. So Pixel 9 and 9 Pro phones as you noted this year have been completely re-engineered. The very first thing you'll notice is that brand new look. They're absolutely beautiful. The camera bar is quite refined and it has this beautiful sculpted enclosure that doesn't just look great. It also really feels wonderful in the hand to me. I love that the look is really true to Google's design philosophy. It has a focus on the user and is very simple but elegant, approachable with the rounded corners. The product is also modern, reflecting how innovative the product is. I mean it's jam packed with the latest and greatest ai, but the design is also a combination of form that I mentioned and also the function. And so the completely new design also enables a lot of benefits for the users, including things like the product now is twice as durable, improving resistance to drops 'cause we all know that we drop our phones and then that improved product architecture also enables the phone to be a little bit thinner, enabling that great handfield while maintaining battery life.

Rachid (00:04:45)
So when you say it's twice as durable, I just imagine a bunch of people you know dropping phones and see if it lasts twice as long or something like that. How do you measure durability and how did you actually make it more durable? Yeah.

Stephanie (00:04:56)
There's two questions in there. How do we measure durability? It's a little more scientific than people just dropping phones at random. You know, we have wonderful reliability teams and engineering teams that take a much more scientific approach, focusing on very controlled sort of tests where you're dropping from specific heights on specific surfaces to make sure that we're, we're taking repeatable data and understanding that the design changes that are getting made are actually impacting the products performance. In terms of why the design is more durable this year, that's a really wonderful combination of the latest and greatest materials and new product architecture. So the products this year are built of the latest Gorilla Glass. They have wonderful recycled aluminum enclosures, but all of that comes together with a product architecture that's been designed to enable this additional durability. There's a new mid frame architecture this year that actually helps bring it all together and then the glass is also integrated into the frame in a more seamless way that helps protect it as

Rachid (00:06:01)
Well. Now for anyone listening going to the Google store, you'll be greeted by quite some poppy colors this year for Pixel 9 and 9 Pro. Just wondering, uh, Stephanie, which one is your favorite? Which color would you pick for that island?

Stephanie (00:06:13)
This year we have a phenomenal lineup of colors. So we have some classics, we have Obsidian, we have Porcelain, which is a wonderful warm neutral that's ceramic inspired. We have Hazel, which is a favorite that's actually coming back to the Pro. It's a beautiful nature inspired hue. But my absolute favorite this year is the Rose Quartz. I just love how the pink comes to the Pro line of phones. It's a beautiful confident pink as well and it is sort of subtle and just such a confident color.

Rachid (00:06:42)
So you as a product manager for the Pro Pixels means now you have two phones to look after rather than just the one with the introduction of the Pixel 9 Pro and the Pixel 9 Pro XL. Why did you decide on having two Pro phones this year?

Stephanie (00:06:55)
Our users have been asking for a smaller Pro phone for a while and by providing a choice in size, we're giving users that opportunity to have that ideal pro experience in whatever size works best for them. Pixel 9 Pro at 6.3 inches feels really wonderful in your hand. And Pixel 9 Pro XL at 6.8 inches gives you just that more immersive screen to be able to do a little bit more, whether it's entertainment or productivity beyond the display size and charging and battery that are scaled with the display. The users won't have to make any compromises since both Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL share exactly the same features and camera hardware. That means it's an easy decision, you just have to choose which side you prefer.

Rachid (00:07:39)
Well thanks a lot for that because I'm definitely going for the smaller 9 Pro. So I'm really excited about that. So Stephanie, as the product manager for the Pro phones, is there anything you know you like about sort of the non-Pro phones? I'm sure there is a product manager for the non-Pro phones that you regularly talk to probably feel it's amazing what they're doing. How do you feel about that phone?

Stephanie (00:07:58)
The Pixel 9 is an absolutely wonderful phone. It is best in its class in so many different areas. Notably, the design is absolutely beautiful this year. It also is twice as durable. The Pixel 9 is best in its class in terms of camera with the two of the same cameras that we have on the pro camera. So the main and the ultra wide. And then notably this year it also has a brighter display. The Pixel 9 also comes in delightful colors. So we've got Obsidian, Porcelain and then really vibrant Wintergreen and Peony this year.

Rachid (00:08:33)
Let's talk about the inside, the stuff we cannot see, but that will help us through the day. There's more memory this year and a new chip. The Tensor G4.

Stephanie (00:08:42)
Tensor G4 chip is our fastest and most powerful chip and was built and co-designed with Google DeepMind to bring the newest and most capable model Gemini Nano with Multimodality. In terms of the chip itself, it is exciting in terms of 20% faster web browsing, 17% faster app launches and again optimized to run those most advanced AI models. We're pairing the chip this year with significantly upgraded RAM across all the phones to deliver even better performance. So Pixel 9 is gonna come with 12 gigs of Ram and Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL come with 16 gigs of Ram.

Rachid (00:09:18)
Amazing and that plenty of Ram to run Gemini Nano. Now for those who don't know, how would you describe what Gemini Nano is? And then you also mentioned that it runs with multimodality, so maybe there are just a bunch of words that we need to explain to the listeners.

Stephanie (00:09:32)
Yeah, so Gemini Nano powers a bunch of experiences on the phone. Everything from weather summary to magic lists and of course Pixel Screenshots. When we start to talk about multimodality and multimodal AI, it's expanding on Gemini's generative capabilities. It enables processing of different kinds of information. Those are the different modalities that we're talking about, including images, videos, and texts. Multimodality can be thought about as giving AI the ability to process and understand different sensory modes practically to the user. That means that you're not limited to one input and one output. So my input or my interactions with Gemini have become so much more natural because I can give it any input and generate basically any content type. So

Rachid (00:10:25)
You mentioned Gemini Nano creates or powers Pixel screenshots, which is kind of mind boggling. I mean I take a gazillion screenshots probably just like the next person. So what does Gemini Nano do with my screenshots that is useful to me?

Stephanie (00:10:39)
Screenshots have transformed my ability to capture ideas and inspiration on the go. I love that I can also consolidate them into groups or lists. Reminders are another feature within Screenshots that are super powerful for me. A couple examples of how I've been using it. Oftentimes I'll see a recipe throughout the week and I'll save that recipe by taking a screenshot and I'll set a reminder in screenshots to remind myself what to cook over the next weekend so that I don't forget when I'm going to the grocery store. But if I don't set a reminder, I can also go back to Screenshots and say, Hey, show me, show me some exciting recipes that I can cook this weekend. I can also ask for specific things like show me a dessert if I need to bring a dessert over to a friend's house,

Rachid (00:11:23)
Right? I usually take screenshots as well when I see something that I might wanna buy at some point, but then maybe, maybe it's this sort of beautiful piece of furniture that I'm interested in. Can't for the life of me find that screenshot. I could ask Pixel Screenshots like Hey, where are my screenshots with this sort of furniture on it?

Stephanie (00:11:39)
The other category that I really love for Screenshots is friends giving book recommendations. So oh right, I'll take the book recommendations and then I'm often reading a book already so I won't wanna go look at that book right away. But when I'm done with the book I'm currently reading, I can go back to Screenshots and say, Hey, what were those books that my friends recommended?

Rachid (00:11:58)
Nice. Okay. Book recommendations, sort of Screenshots shopping. I think we coined that here and out. Well Stephanie, we cannot talk about Pixel without talking about cameras of course. So let's start with the hardware part. One thing at least that immediately caught my eye on the Pro phones is that there is a huge upgrade of the selfie camera. So why did you decide to change the selfie camera?

Stephanie (00:12:18)
The selfie camera is such a highly used camera and whether you're taking a video call or sharing on social media or just taking a family or friend's photo, it's one that's really personal 'cause it's photos of yourself. So we were so excited to upgrade the selfie camera this year. It doesn't just have higher resolution at 42 megapixels. It also has 30% better light sensitivity for better low light photos. And then, most exciting of all, a wide field of view. So 103 degrees so that you can fit all your friends and family in the shot.

Rachid (00:12:51)
That's perfect. And then you still have three other cameras in the back, right?

Stephanie (00:12:54)
Of course. So Pixel has three phenomenal cameras on the back, on the pro device. It's a 50 megapixel main, a 48 megapixel wide, and then a 48 megapixel tele. But then beyond that, all those cameras coming together actually gives you extended high quality images. So you're getting almost like a 2x optical quality and a 10x at optical quality as well. So you can really feel comfortable to zoom in and out throughout the range and really maintain that highest quality image.

Rachid (00:13:23)
I guess most of it. That is the sort of photo experience. What about videos? Anything changed in, in the way that the Pixel captures video this year?

Stephanie (00:13:31)
Yeah, on video. So Video Boost is a new feature that's really revolutionary. It takes all the amazing computational photography on the phone and extends that to videos, which is a huge computational challenge. A 4K video at 30 FPS is going through 250 million pixels every single second. So a lot of computation. And so we offload those to the cloud to be able to bring even higher quality to those videos. This year we're bringing two new capabilities. One is high resolution zoom in videos. That way you can zoom in all the way to 20x . And we're also bringing AI upscaling for 8K resolution and unmatched quality. For me, I've been loving using the Zoom within video to see whether I'm at a performance. I also take a lot of videos of my pets and oftentimes they're off a little bit in the corner and so you can zoom in gently and be able to get more detail, especially in low light. It's a great feature.

Rachid (00:14:31)
Amazing. Can't wait to try that. Now of course there's a lot of magic when it comes to pixel cameras in AI. We've known features like, you know, Magic Eraser, Magic Editor, what else did we add for the Pixel 9 series?

Stephanie (00:14:44)
The camera this year has a number of amazing new AI features and I'm so excited to get to use them and then also share them. So one of my favorites is Add Me; every year Pixel's actually been building on this problem that it's really hard to take great group photos where everyone looks their best. So last year we launched Best Take, which helped you be able within a series of photos, choose and help adjust faces so that people were smiling or had the face that they were looking for in the picture. This year we've taken that even further with a feature called Add Me, where if you're in a group but the photographer also wants to be in the picture, that photographer can actually swap with someone else in the photo. And we use a combination of 15 AI models and core to be able to fuse together the two photos for a perfect shot where both photographers are included in the photo.

Rachid (00:15:39)
You need to walk me through that. Yeah, so, so let's say I'm the photographer because I usually am, yeah, there's a bunch of friends, maybe they're eight of them and they're standing next to each other and uh, they, they look pretty nice. I took that picture. So how do I end up in that picture? What, what happens to make that happen?

Stephanie (00:15:55)
Yeah, so you can tag out one of your friends and they'll swap places. They'll become photographer number two. The photographer two will take the camera and they'll be actually guided with a really beautiful onscreen UI and some core processing going on that helps them line up the second photo. That way you can rejoin the group and then you'll get one final output shot where everyone is included. So you have all 9 of you in the picture,

Rachid (00:16:21)
Right. So he'll see some sort of overlay of the picture that I took and then he can sort of line it up and I'm sure AI will help a little bit if he's a little bit off and, and I I can be in the picture with him.

Stephanie (00:16:31)
Exactly, exactly. So there's this beautiful UI that helps line up for that second photographer to line up the photo.

Rachid (00:16:38)
Amazing. I'm, yeah, really dying to try that one. I'm reading here Steph, that we sort of expanded the Magic Editor as well, uh, with Auto Frame and Reimagine. Could you walk us through these two?

Stephanie (00:16:50)
So Magic Editor is one of my personal favorite features. I love the Pixel camera, but I also love editing my photos and being able to bring a little bit of a creative touch with auto frame. This takes images where you want to better frame the subject in the photo and better compose your photo. And it uses AI and generative AI to suggest some alternate compositions. I love that it doesn't just suggest compositions where it's cropping in, but also does compositions where it's used generative AI to crop out. And again, a lot of the composition of the photo is about the storytelling. It's about putting your subject in the center or where you want it to be and it intelligently suggests a few different options and you can choose from those, the one that is reflecting what you would want to share.

Rachid (00:17:39)
Looking forward to trying that out as well. So many of those magic editing features, which is really great. Yes. Tell us more about Reimagine.

Stephanie (00:17:47)
Reimagine is one that really unleashes creativity. So this one you can go in and take sections of the photo and actually write in things that you want to see. For example, if there's a tree in the picture but it doesn't have any leaves, you can go in and say, reimagine this with green leaves or with fall leaves. I've also particularly loved reimagine for pictures of pets. 'cause oftentimes you'll catch them doing something really cute, but maybe it's not in the cutest setting. It might be like in a bathroom or something. And so you can change the background out for something that maybe is a little bit more fun. Sometimes you can go completely wild. I've, I've sent my cat to outer space, , I've sent her to a volcano. Um, I've tried things like the surface of the moon and so it's really one that lets you unleash your creativity onto your photo.

Rachid (00:18:35)
Amazing. And that's like the same way the Magic Editors always work, so I sort of circle something and then I get to type something to reimagine that part. Mm-Hmm.

Stephanie ( 00:18:44)
That's the magic is that it takes these really complex edits and makes them supernatural and very easy and candidly fun to use.

Rachid (00:18:51)
Absolutely. That's a really easy way of doing it. Now Stephanie, we were talking about this, well imagine a situation where you are stuck on an island, and as you mentioned, it might be really useful to have that satellite SOS feature, but I'm not really understanding what it could do for me. What is it?

Stephanie (00:19:08)
So with Pixel 9 phones, these are gonna be the first Android phones in the US to include Satellite SOS, which helps you get emergency help even if you're outside of cellular coverage. So if I was stuck on an island and I didn't have cell reception, I would be able to more easily contact emergency services and share my location and, you know, maybe get picked up.

Rachid (00:19:29)
Exactly. And while we're talking about being stuck on an island, but of course there are many, many more, uh, real world scenarios where there is no cell reception and, and you might actually, uh, be in dire need of it.

Stephanie (00:19:40) Pixel's been innovating in the call space and continuing to bring new call features every year that help save you time and also avoid calls that you don't want with amazing spam protection. This year we have a brand new feature called Call Notes that actually lets you take a private summary of your conversation. This is wonderful, especially for complex calls where people are throwing details at you, whether it's appointment time and date phone numbers. You don't have to go scrambling for that pen and paper. It helps take that burden off and take the notes for you.

Rachid (00:20:12)
Yeah, you're right. I mean I love how uh, you keep innovating on something so old fashioned as you know, uh, doing a phone call, you mentioned it's completely private. Is that where Gemini Nano comes in?

Stephanie (00:20:22)
That is one of the amazing places where Gemini Nano comes in. So the call notes feature is completely on device. So again, it's preserving the privacy for the call and the notes are there for you at the end of the call.

Rachid (00:20:36)
Stephanie, you worked on Pixel since Pixel 4a, which feels like decades ago already. It's not that long, of course. How would you say sort of the Pixel devices, the whole series change between 4a and 9 and and how does that tie in into what Pixel is today?

Stephanie (00:20:52)
So Pixel has always been about AI and bringing that AI to users in a helpful way, but year on year we've been continuing to build out our stack to be able to deliver even more advanced experiences. So with Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, we brought our first generation of Tensor chip that really enables advanced models on devices. And then on top of that we're continuing to build even more this year. We have Google's most advanced family of Gemini AI models. We're bringing those deeper into Android os and then of course I talked about the deep integration into silicon and services and apps that billions of people turn to for help. So it's just gotten, the integration has gotten deeper and better and I'm so excited for what we're able to bring this year.

Rachid (00:21:38)
Stephanie, thank you so much for this, uh, whirlwind through, through Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL. For anyone looking for more, just check out the Google store and you know, that's the best place to see all those beautiful colors that the Pixels have this year. Thank you so much, Steph.

Stephanie (00:21:52)
Thank you, Rashid.