Google Pixel's Call Screen could get smarter with AI-powered replies

Key Takeaways

• Google Pixel's Call Screen could potentially get AI-powered contextual replies.
• Google Phone app beta hints at Gemini Nano powering AI Replies for smarter suggestions.
• Pixel Call Screen is still limited to certain countries and needs to be expanded globally.

Call Screen is one of the best features of Pixel phones. It protects you from spammers and unknown callers by enabling Google Assistant to pick up calls on your behalf and find out why the person is calling you. Since its debut in 2018, Google has slowly expanded the feature to more countries and made it smarter, giving it a more natural and human-like voice this year. Now, Google seemingly wants to make Call Screen even better by adding support for AI-powered contextual replies.

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As per code-sleuth AssembleDebug, Call Assist on Pixels could soon gain "AI Replies." This will enable the feature to "suggest "AI-powered smart replies based on the caller's Call Screen responses." As of now, Google Assistant in Call Assist provides contextual reply suggestions, though they are relatively generic.

9to5Google's teardown of the latest beta release of the Google Phone app (v153) provides more hints at how the feature will work. Based on the strings and references like "dobby_LLM," it appears Google will use Gemini Nano to power AI Replies, allowing it to understand natural language and provide smarter suggestions.

There's still a lot that is not known about AI Replies in Call Screen, and it does not appear ready for release yet. But based on today's report, the infusion of AI should make the feature better at understanding what the caller is saying, thereby suggesting more useful replies.

Google needs to expand Pixel Call Screen to more regions

Despite its usefulness, Call Screening on Pixels is only available in limited countries. Automatic Call Screen and Call Notes are exclusively available on Pixel phones in the US, with the latter being limited to the Pixel 9 series.

Manual call screening is available in several regions, including the UK, Canada, France, and Germany. However, other features like Direct My Call are limited to the US and UK. Similarly, Call Screen is also available on the Pixel Watch but only in the US.

Besides the addition of AI, Google should also work on expanding and delivering the same Call Screening experience on its Pixel phones across all regions.