Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google has announced that OnePlus and OPPO phones will get Gemini-powered features like summaries and an AI toolbox.
- The smartphone brands also said they plan to be the first to launch AI features based on Gemini Ultra.
- By contrast, Google and Samsung use the less capable Gemini Nano and Gemini Pro AI models on their phones.
OnePlus and OPPO recently announced their AI Eraser feature on smartphones, offering object-erasing functionality for photos. This feature is powered by the companies’ own AI model, though. Now, the BBK brands have revealed that AI features powered by Google’s Gemini models are coming to their devices.
Google announced at its Cloud Next event that OnePlus and OPPO phones would get Gemini-powered features like news summaries, audio recorder summaries, an “AI toolbox,” and more. The Chinese brands also hinted at an AI feature to generate social media content, ostensibly related to text or image generation.
The partnership doesn’t stop here, as OPPO and OnePlus also announced that Google’s most powerful AI model, Gemini 1.0 Ultra, will be coming to their phones later in 2024. In fact, the two companies say they “aim to be the first to launch features based on the Gemini Ultra platform on smartphones later this year.”
Gemini Ultra on phones: A huge boost for AI functionality?
The Samsung Galaxy S24 series and Google Pixel 8 Pro use a mix of Gemini Nano and Gemini Pro for AI-powered features, but don’t actually use Gemini Ultra. So OnePlus and OPPO’s adoption of Ultra would indeed be a landmark move and suggests even more impressive AI features in theory.
Gemini Ultra is indeed Google’s most powerful AI model, but unlike Gemini Nano which runs on-device, Ultra runs off Google’s own servers. That means any future OnePlus/OPPO AI feature powered by Gemini Ultra will require an internet connection.
The two smartphone brands also have some lofty longer-term goals for AI-generated content (AIGC):
For the next three to five years, OPPO and OnePlus plan to launch more than one hundred AIGC experiences and will continue to prioritize their users’ needs and ensure their products are effortlessly intuitive.
The duo didn’t clarify what proportion of these AI features would be powered by Google AI and what proportion would be powered by its in-house AI models.
In any event, OnePlus and OPPO said more details about the Google partnership and supported devices will be revealed later this year.
