Customer Experiences Must Incorporate Smartphone Capabilities

Google gave us an update of Gemini - their "universal AI assistant" during the Pixel 10 smartphone rollout on August 20, 2025 at a live event hosted by Jimmy Fallon in Brooklyn, New York. Key themes included their focus on consumer privacy, personalization, intelligence, and proactive engagement or what I would refer to as Invisible Experiences (i.e., what happens when brands anticipate the need of a consumer and help them without being asked).

Here is what stood out for me:

1. Magic Cue - pulls relevant information from your (Google) calendar, email, or messages into your Messaging interface. Can answer simple questions (e.g., reservation time) or create a card of flight information when on the phone with the airline. "Finding information for me" as a feature is LONG OVERDUE. I would be happy if I could even query my Gmail this easily to find information I need. The potential here is huge, and the demo showcased limited use cases of restaurant or airline reservations (I am only surprised it wasn't food delivery given it came of of Silicon Valley). They are impressive if you consider that Google claims that 100% of this compute is on the phone. What it doesn't do is integrate more broadly into my spending, location data, etc. For example, my husband can't text me and ask, "what time will you be home?" and get an answer based on my current location and mode of transportation. HIGH potential impact. LOW excitement today.
   

2. Camera Coach - gives real time assistance to photographers re backdrop, phone orientation, distance from subject, lighting, etc. It mixes suggestions (i.e., assistive) with examples with communication cues. I can imagine using the Coach if I were really trying to nail a photo. (I usually default to taking many and editing afterwards). I can't imagine using it each time I take a photo. HERE IS WHAT I LIKED - this was one of many features where Google showcased a mix of a traditional touch UI with buttons or carousels and open-ended natural language interfaces. Remember, consumers don't do well with blank pages. My EXCITEMENT -> mixed interface and real-time coaching. Camera is a powerful demo, but easy to extend use cases.
   

3. Edit with Ask Photos - here the blended UI showed up again. Consumers could use a mix of traditional editing dials or buttons on their smartphones to change depth of field, colors, filters, and more. Mostly, I appreciated the UI. As apps continue to add features to their products, touch or GUI interfaces will start to fail due to complexity. The mix of natural language and GUI seems to have real potential to change the way consumers engage with digital experiences. Google's demos also remind us of how important the smartphone is for creators - over a quarter of online adults in the US.
   

4. Google Translate - language translation is not new. Near real-time in my own voice including tone, inflections and more seems to be - especially on a smartphone at near real speed. Translation is one of the powerful gifts that AI/GenAI offers to consumers. Given that they speak one of the more common languages, it gives them access to services that may not have been easy to navigate in the past due to language. HIGH potential impact to solve real problems that real people have. IF everyone had a smartphone that could do this, imagine how much more access folks might have to education, healthcare, legal services and more. Imagine how it might simplify customer service workflows.

WIM: Customer experience platforms are adding AI and marketing what they can do (e.g., summarize, orchestrate, assist, etc.) What too few of these B2B marketers do is 1) speak explicitly to the new or improved experiences they create for consumers (i.e., offer specific examples) or 2) explain how evolving consumer digital touchpoints fits into their overall story. Many stories are what my colleagues used to call "inside out" or what we can do (i.e., push) versus "outside in" or what our customers want (i.e., pull).

Backdrop - Google hosted a live event with Jimmy Fallon on August 20, 2025 to rollout their new line-up of Pixel devices (e.g., smartphone, smartwatch, air buds, etc.) It included the standard the standard focus on the devices (e.g., look/feel, cameras, chipsets), benefits of owning more than one device (i.e., seamless experiences), and the usual (repeated for a decade) Google pitches around open ecosystems, too many apps, and Rich Communication Services (RCS) (i.e., the feature rich telecom-centric messaging service they've been pushing for 10+ years, it seems).

The event was unique in its style and leaned into celebrities and influencers to pitch creative AI features especially on the smartphone. I watched it on YouTube. It reminded me of early iPhone events with Steve Jobs. They did well to lean into consumer data privacy and security by repeatedly telling us that "everything is done on the phone." I was surprised how little they showcased of their AI features. Assuming their marketing team is very sophisticated, it is a reminder that shiny cool hardware is still what sells devices - not AI, services, or seamlessness.