While better lenses and sensors are responsible for some of these advances, the biggest improvements come from powerful artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology that meld hardware with software to create an AI camera – like ones on the latest Google phones.

AI combines the capabilities of a professional camera with editing features that were previously only available in editing softwares with a steep learning curve. For example, AI in the Pixel Camera lets you take sharp photos in low light, remove unwanted items from an image, unblur faces, and get the best group photos. So the next time you want to capture your kids while they’re jumping around, this camera has you covered for a clear photo.

“Early camera phones were all about doing old-school optics right,” says Alexei Efros, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley teaching computational photography. “Better and bigger lenses, and so on. They missed the boat on this idea that cameras should be more than physical-optical machines.” Most of the improvements now, Efros adds, “can all be done in a cell phone, in software.”

The Pixel Camera’s capabilities are further enhanced by the Google Tensor chip, a custom-built processor made by Google that gives Pixel camera the ability to perform complex AI tasks. The result is a phone that lets you take stunning photos without having to master any new or complex tools.

An AI-powered camera relies on special software to give users the ability to snap images that previously only high-end cameras were able to capture. For example, HDR+ technology can snap a dozen or more pictures in rapid succession, then use AI software to align and combine them into a single image free of any blur from camera shake. 

This technology powers Pixel’s Night Sight feature, where photos shot in very low light look bright, crisp, and detailed – a result that previously would have required a professional camera, a tripod, and quite a bit of photography know-how.

Similarly, the AI software in Pixel phones can fix the exposure challenges of taking photos in high-contrast situations, where shadows typically make one part of the image look dark and bright light makes another element look washed out. It may process multiple images to capture visual details otherwise lost to shadows and reduce the overexposure of bright sections. “All of this is extended down to the average cell phone user,” Efros says. “Anyone can be a creator.”

The AI-powered cameras in Google’s Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro make it easier to take beautiful photographs and videos. Check out some of the features that turn Pixel shots into perfect shots with AI photography.

• Best Take¹: End the debate over which group photo to post. Best Take combines photos with similar subjects and angles into one fantastic picture where everyone is on point.

• Photo Unblur: The Pixel AI camera system taps into google Tensor’s powerful processing and advanced machine learning to unblur photos, so the picture isn’t ruined because of a little movement

• Magic Eraser³: You can remove just about anything you don’t want in the final picture with just a few taps - and the background will get filled so no one will notice the image was edited

• Audio Magic Eraser²:  Sounds from cars, wind, or construction can be disruptive in video. Audio Magic Eraser uses Google AI to reduce distracting noise with a few taps, so you only hear the sound you want.

• Video Boost: Don’t worry about a shaky or imperfect video. With Video Boost on the Pixel 9 Pro, colour, lighting, stabilisation, and graininess are automatically adjusted to help improve overall quality.
  How it works: You take a video with your Pixel phone, and Google Tensor helps with pre-processing and sends an optimised video file to the cloud for processing. We then apply our computational photography models to every frame, giving you more vivid details, high dynamic range, better lighting, stabilisation – and when the final video output automatically appears in your Google Photos library. Video Boost is available on Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro phones only.

• Real Tone: Historically, people of colour have appeared washed out or lost in shadows in photos. Real Tone relies on AI software to adjust colour balance and lighting to represent everyone more accurately, addressing long-standing problems a diverse panel of experts have identified while testing our cameras.

• Night Sight: This mode allows you to shoot photos in extremely low light without losing sharpness – and even capture crisp images of the night sky.

• Long Exposure: When you use Motion Mode, Pixel’s AI software adds blur creatively to capture the energy in the scene in front of you. You can simulate a traditional long exposure that beautifully blurs the motion of waterfalls or moving cars.

• Intelligent tone mapping: This feature automatically accounts for different light levels in various parts of an image – foreground, subject, background – and sets the exposure appropriately for each area.

Efros says that AI technology has made phone cameras so good, many professional photographers tell him pictures taken by a modern phone are better than those from an expensive, pro-grade DSLR. “AI gives the artist more and better tools to work with,” he says. For everyone else – the amateur photographers, the parents taking family pictures, the social media sharers – the AI-powered camera on Pixel 9 Pro or Pixel 9 will dramatically improve their images, no matter the situation.