One of the best aspects of owning a Pixel phone is that Google releases periodic “Pixel Drop” updates, which introduce new software features between major operating system updates. November’s Pixel Drop brings a slew of new features, including one that’ll be familiar to iOS users: AI-powered notification summaries.
We won’t lie — we weren’t big fans of how AI notification summaries worked when they first launched on iOS. They often left out crucial information, resulting in summaries that were either dramatic or alarmist. This prompted some people to turn them off completely, but they’ve improved a bit since launch. Google’s lead in the AI game may give it an advantage, but only time will tell.
These Pixel AI summaries will appear for popular messaging apps when you receive either multiple or lengthy messages, so that you can quickly get a gist of the conversation.
The feature appears to be rolling out in a server-side update, so don’t worry if you don’t see the option right away. It’s also disabled by default, so we’ll show you where to check and how to enable notification summaries on your Pixel phone when it arrives.
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Which Pixel phones will get the new notification summaries?
Google’s been pretty good about getting new features to older Pixel phones, but notification summaries don’t seem to be one of them.
The new feature is available on the Pixel 9 series, excluding the Pixel 9a, and the latest Pixel 10 line of phones. For now, the feature is only available in English.
While the Pixel 8 series did introduce some AI-powered features during its lifecycle, it was the Pixel 9 that truly felt like Google’s first “pure” AI phone, so the limitation makes sense.
Here’s how to enable notification summaries on your Pixel
If Notification summaries are available for your Pixel, the option will appear under the Manage section of the Notification settings page. Here are the steps to turn the feature on:
- Go to Settings.
- Tap Notifications.
- Tap Notification summaries.
- Toggle Use notification summaries on.
That’s it. Now you’ll receive summaries from popular messaging apps when the conversation gets too lengthy.
