I tested three key Pixel AI features on Pixel 10 Pro, here’s what happened

The new Pixel 10 series poses a conundrum, especially for the Pixel 10 Pro. While its siblings have one or more notable hardware upgrades, the Pixel 10 Pro focuses on a few small upgrades to the Pixel 9 Pro. This isn’t a bad thing, as the Pixel 9 Pro is an excellent phone; however, it does mean that the few unique features stand out even more. 

Compared to the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, which boasts the first IP68 dust and water rating on a folding phone, and the Pixel 10, which features a new 5x telephoto camera at the lowest price on a Pixel, the Pixel 10 Pro skates under the radar in an unassuming way, designed to get the job done. Even the Pixel 10 Pro XL has two key features that set it apart from the competition, as well as its smaller sibling.

The Pixel 10 Pro relies heavily on software experiences, and of course, AI and Gemini on Android play a huge role. Even the sole camera upgrade — a new 100x ProRes Zoom feature — relies on AI processing, although the results are among the best smartphone cameras.

There are three notable AI features on the Pixel 10 series, and while they’re still a little buggy at first — to be expected as they’re the first building blocks in this new path — they are proving to be fantastic. Crucially, they’re also a sign of the AI to come, and it’s something I’ve been waiting for.

Meet Magic Cue: useful suggestions, as if by magic

Magic Cue is a key building block in Google’s path towards Agentic AI, and it’s a fantastic idea; Magic Cue surfaces key information in the form of contextual suggestions and smart replies, so you don’t have to search for it. 

If someone asks you for your flight details in a text message, Magic Cue can surface the information from your calendar and make it available to insert with one tap. The same applies when someone asks how long you’ll be before a meeting, where Magic Cue can look at Maps for your current location and your calendar for the appointment, and calculate how long it’ll take to get there. Or if you call an airline or train company, Magic Cue can surface your booking information directly within the call, so you have it to hand.

This is a fantastic idea, but two key issues currently make it less useful. Thankfully, Google is working to address both of them. Magic Cue doesn’t always display results as it’s still in preview, but I’ve seen considerable improvements in the past week, and it will continue to improve.

Magic Cue also requires specific prompts to display information such as flight details. There are numerous privacy and security concerns associated with this. Still, Google is erring on the side of caution to ensure that data is only shared when Magic Cue is confident that it directly responds to the request.

The biggest issue is that Magic Cue relies on your personal Gmail account and can’t access any calendar appointments in a Google Workspace account. If you have a work account or a personal email with a custom domain, you’ll need to copy the relevant information to your personal Gmail account. This is frustrating, but speaking with Google, the company is aware and working on eventually adding controls to Workspace that allow IT Admins and users to control the information — whether sensitive or not — shared with Magic Cue and other AI features.

Neither of these is a dealbreaker, and Google has already demonstrated that its AI features can work across Google accounts, so I expect we’ll quickly see a solution to the biggest issue.

Daily Hub could be incredible in the future

Nowhere has Google proven this more than with Daly Hub, which has a different issue from Magic Cue. Daily Hub is designed to surface key information in a single place at the beginning and the end of the day.

Located in a small pill next to the stocks on the Google Discover screen when you swipe left on the homescreen, Daily Hub is in a convenient place and works fairly well to summarize pertinent information. Crucially, it also displays calendar events from all calendars on your phone, rather than just your personal calendar, like Magic Cue.

This distinction is key as it makes Daily Hub much more useful. There’s just one issue: Daily Hub only displays at specific times, and there’s no way to set your routine hours for it to learn from. 

The biggest change I hope Google makes is to make Daily Hub ever-present on the Google Discover screen. It appeared on the screen once for me in the afternoon, although it was after a late start that day, and it was a surprisingly useful way to help plan the day. Hopefully, this can be a feature we can use on demand, rather than when the phone determines it is the right time to present the Daily Hub.

Google has figured out ProRes Zoom, even if it’s not technically accurate

There’s one Pixel 10 AI feature that is already available, key to the Pixel 10 Pro experience, and works exceptionally well: the new 100x ProRes Zoom feature.

While the Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL don’t have a secondary telephoto lens like the Galaxy S25 Ultra, the telephoto lens offers 5x optical zoom, and Google is using AI to enable the same 100x flagship zoom feature as Samsung’s camera powerhouse. 

We had always expected Google to launch a feature to compete with Samsung, and my early tests show extremely promising results. Google keeps the before-and-after photos so you can compare the difference, but when you do, you may be put off by how processed the images are. However, despite this, I love the Zoom performance, and it’s a trade-off that’s definitely worthwhile.

Overall, the Pixel 10 Pro has a few key features that help it partially stand out, but while Google has achieved great results with the ProRes Zoom feature, its efforts have been less rewarding with the early versions of Magic Cue and Daily Hub. Yet, both features offer outstanding promise,  have consistently improved every day during this preview period, and are two of the most useful AI use cases on a phone to date. They’re on track to make the Pixel series the best phone, as long as they deliver on their potential.