I miss the good old days when phone launches were phone launches and not AI events that I have to assume were created using AI that promptly ignored instructions and decided to make it all about itself. Google barely seemed to mention the latest phones and hardware and glossed over the tech during its Made by Google event on August 13 in its rush to try and convince us that its AI is more interesting. Not about phones If you’re seeking proof the event wasn’t really about its Pixel phones, then look no further than Google using Samsung and Motorola phones on stage to demonstrate its AI features at an event it had already confirmed would feature new Pixel 9 series devices .
It also led with 30 minutes of Gemini AI talk and demonstrations before it got to the phones. Even then, we saw a Pixel 9 used (for an AI demo, of course) before it was even spoken about. One hour into the event, I’d seen only a handful of renders showing the Pixel 9 phones, as the hardware was almost completely ignored.
The new phones appear to be a wonderful evolution of what is already a brilliant design, and while Google had cameras capturing the “action” all over the stage, we never got any lovely close-up beauty shots of the phones. Why? Because everyone was desperate to show off how the AI would mess around with my photos, tell me the weather, organize screenshots, and say “super” a lot. The problem is that none of Google’s AI demonstrations were that compelling.
It was all the same va.