Google caused a pretty big wave in the artificial intelligence space last month following its rebranding of Bard, its AI-powered ChatGPT competitor, into Gemini, mirroring the name of the very Large Language Model (LLM) that powers it. It’s confusing, but that’s par for the course withGoogle’s history of product branding. When Bard died, so did Google’s quieter intentions in AI; the company plans to integrate Gemini into all of its products, and it added Gemini into its most expensive Google One plan (butonly for the account manager in family plans). The scope of its AI intentions is so powerful that most of Google’s current smartphone lineup, with the exception of the Google Pixel 8 Pro, cannot run Gemini Nano, the mobile version of its LLM.
It was confirmed earlier today that Gemini Nano will not be coming to the Pixel 8 during the MWC ’24 and AI-centric episode of The Android Show on YouTube (via9to5Google). The company’s remarks during its Q&A were brief, with a Google representative telling viewers that “Nano will not be coming to Pixel 8 because of some hardware limitations.” That said, the company is working on bringing Nano to more “high-end devices in the near future.”
There’s really only one major performance difference between the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, and that’s the amount of RAM each phone has. The Pixel 8 comes with 8GB of RAM, while its more powerful counterpart comes with 12GB of RAM. Both phones are powered by the same processor, the Google Tensor G3. In late February, it was revealed that theMediaTek Dimensity 8300 and 9300 chipsets were updated to support Gemini Nano. Phones like the iQOO Neo 9 Pro, Oppo Reno 12, Poco X6 Pro 5G, and Tecno Phantom V2 Fold run off those SoCs, so they could potentially see Gemini Nano in the future.
The Pixel 8 Pro’s Gemini Nano LLM was part of theDecember Pixel Feature Drop, but itwasn’t exactly the most impressive or useful thingwe could’ve imagined it would be. It came with a Summarize tool for the Recorder app and smart replies for Gboard. In theory, summaries of recorded dialogue would be amazing if they were actually accurate. In actuality, they’re not particularly useful. Smart replies weren’t much better, so maybe it’s not the worst thing that the Gemini Nano Pixel rollout wasn’t as big as it maybe could have been. With any luck, thePixel 9will include enough RAM regardless of which device size you buy.
