TL;DR With the Pixel 10 series, Google has revealed a new AI feature called “Magic Cue.”
Magic Cue watches your screen and offers suggestions by pulling relevant information from multiple apps.
It currently supports a host of Google apps, with support for third-party apps promised to arrive soon.
Despite nearly a decade of selling its Pixel phones (and several years with the Nexus devices before that), Google still strongly relies on unique software experiences to make its phones more compelling. Although all supported Pixel devices have received the Android 16 update, Google is launching special features that give Pixel 10 phones an edge over the rest. One of them is the new Magic Cue functionality, which can be Google’s first step towards agentic usage on a phone — something that Apple also appears to be attempting with an upcoming version of Siri.
While Magic Cue does not, at the moment, control your phone entirely, it is aimed at offering highly personalized suggestions for actions by “connecting the dots of your digital life.” These suggestions are powered by Google’s Gemini models, and likely process all information on-device to keep your personal data safe. While we’re still missing some details from Google, here is what we know about Magic Cue and how it aims to make your life easier.
What is Magic Cue?
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
Magic Cue is like a supercharged version of Android’s app actions, except these suggestions are much more refined and take cues from other apps to reduce the manual labor. In essence, the feature analyzes the contents on your screen and pulls up information from other apps to offer predictive suggestions.
Google illustrates a few scenarios where Magic Cue could prove to be useful. For instance, when you’re calling a particular business, it would scour through your messages, emails, or calendar appointments and pull up details such as the address, order ID, time of appointment, etc., and display this information right within the dialer using a floating overlay window.
Another example Google shares is when you’re chatting with a friend on Google Messages, and they enquire about a restaurant recommendation, Magic Cue could pull up suggestions from other apps like your Google Search or Maps search history, and show them as a suggested reply. All you would have to do is tap the floating suggestion to share it with the other person.
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