Google backtracks, Pixel 8 will get Gemini Nano

Google walked back a bizarre restriction that would prevent its on-device Gemini Nano large language model (LLM) from running on the Pixel 8.

Earlier this month, a Google engineer revealed that Gemini Nano wouldn’t come to the Pixel 8 due to hardware limitations.

The general response to this was along the lines of “What the hell, Google?” Given the Pixel 8 uses the same Tensor G3 chip as the Pixel 8 Pro (which can run Gemini Nano) and has the same 8GB of RAM as the Galaxy S24 (which can run Gemini Nano), so it wasn’t clear why the Pixel 8 couldn’t run Gemini Nano.

The whole debacle was doubly weird, considering that one of the main selling points of Google’s Tensor chips and, specifically, the Tensor G3, was the capability to run more on-device machine learning and AI.

That includes on-device recorder summaries and smart replies in Gboard.

These are the same AI features Nano powers on the Pixel 8 Pro.