Google’s much-delayed Zoom Enhance feature arrives for Pixel 8 Pro

Google included a long-awaited surprise on Tuesday at their Made by Google event by finally announcing the wider availability of its much-anticipated Zoom Enhance feature. Not only will it be included in the upcoming Pixel 9 Pro series, it’s also rolling out to the Pixel 8 Pro as well.

In case you have forgotten what Zoom Enhance is since it was initially announced at the Made By Google event in 2023, this new feature leverages Google’s AI prowess to enhance zoomed-in photos, making them sharper and more detailed. It’s a pretty formidable-looking feature, assuming it works well.

On-device processing

And one of the most exciting aspects of Zoom Enhance, as revealed by Google’s Peyman Milanfar, is that it’s the “first (image-to-image) diffusion model designed & optimized to run fully on-device.” This means all the AI processing happens on your Pixel phone itself, not in the cloud.

Did you ever take a photo & wish you'd zoomed in more or framed better? When this happens, we just crop.

Now there's a better way: Zoom Enhance -a new feature my team just shipped on Pixel. Available in Google Photos under Tools, it enhances both zoomed & un-zoomed images

1/n pic.twitter.com/vKkKdXTwX2

— Peyman Milanfar (@docmilanfar) August 15, 2024

On-device processing delivers a significant advantage in speed, eliminating the need to wait for images to be uploaded and processed in the cloud. You get near-instant results with your photos remaining exclusively on your device for additional privacy. That also means Zoom Enhance remains fully functional even when you lack an internet connection, giving you the freedom to zoom and refine whenever you choose.

This on-device capability also explains why the feature is currently limited to the more powerful Pixel models, though the fact that the Pixel 9 with the Tensor G4 and 12GB of RAM is curiously left out on this one is a head-scratcher. Perhaps the lack of a zoom lens on the non-Pro models is the real issue, here, but some clarity on that front would be helpful.

This feature will ship with the Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL, but those of you with a Pixel 8 Pro should see it via software update at any time. And when you do, you should definitely go out and see if it works as well as advertised. I’m sure we’ll be seeing some crazy examples of it soon.