Joe Maring / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google has reportedly been working on a new AI-powered assistance tool for Pixel devices since 2023.
- The system would monitor your screen and actions in apps, and offer “personal predictive suggestions.”
- First known as Pixie, and then Pixel Sense, a new leak suggests Google has renamed the tool to Magic Cue.
Who doesn’t love a good mystery? In the smartphone world, upcoming high-profile devices sometimes leak so much that it feels like there’s nothing left to know about them. While that can be really satisfying, it’s also a lot of fun to watch a more nebulous rumor evolve over time, raising question after question as the story behind it slowly unfolds. We’re still not quite to the bottom of this one yet, but this week a new leak adds a curious chapter to the story of Pixie and Pixel Sense.
In case you haven’t been following this one, we first heard about Pixie back in late 2023, described as a new on-device AI-powered assistant for Pixel hardware. It failed to materialize for the Pixel 9 series, but then just this March we reported on Google’s interest in retooling the service as Pixel Sense and introducing it with Pixel 10 phones. Further analysis suggested this would be less like the interactive voice assistants we have with the Google Assistant and now Gemini, and more like an automation tool — even spinning off into Pixel Screenshots.
Apparently Google wasn’t done with reinventing this project yet, because over on Telegram, Mystic Leaks shares a short video recording with the claim that Pixel Sense has found a new name in the form of Magic Cue (via 9to5Google).
As you can see in these screengrabs from the video, Magic Cue does indeed seem to be taking the form that we were beginning to expect from Pixel Sense, using AI to gather information about what you’re doing in apps, and predictively trying to help get stuff done. If the idea of AI reading your chats just sounds like a privacy trade-off you could do without, it’s reassuring to see that users will have to positively opt in to Magic Cue, as this setup screen does not depict the service as being on by default.
The source here claims that Magic Cue is on track for introduction alongside the Pixel 10, and considering the false start with the Pixel 9, we really hope that’s finally true.
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