Suffering from photo FOMO? Here’s a solution to it.
Google on Tuesday announced that its upcoming Pixel 9 phone will include a new AI-powered tool that will let users add themselves to photos without using Photoshop.
Called the “Add Me” feature, it allows the person taking a group photo to take the group photo first and then add themselves later by posing alone in the same scene.
Google’s feature overlays both photos to create one seamless image, as if everyone was captured in the same frame at the same time.
“Typically, group photos do not include one designated photographer,” Google said in a statement. read.
“Add Me allows you to take a photo with everyone there (including you) without having to set up a tripod or ask strangers for help.”
The AI features of the new edition of the $799 Google Pixel, which rivals Apple’s new iPhone, will also integrate Google’s chatbot, Gemini, to enable conversations between users and the AI software.
“There’s been a lot of promises and coming-soon announcements about AI, but not enough real-world utility, which is why today we’re getting real,” Rick Osterloh, the company’s senior vice president of devices and services, said Tuesday. “We’re fully in the Gemini era.”
The push for AI follows Google’s introduction of the technology in its Gmail app and search engine Gemini earlier this year, where the company showed AI-generated summaries based on search queries at the top of search results. But the feature had some issues, including showing misleading or odd answers to users’ queries.
Critics have accused Google of lagging behind in the AI race despite its latest innovations, with former CEO Eric Schmidt blaming the company’s failure on its work-from-home policies.
“Google has decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home are more important than winning,” he said while speaking to Stanford University students this week.
He adds: “Startups succeed because people work hard.”
