‘Pixel VIPs’ Appearing For Google Pixel Owners As Play Store Update

Google Pixel owners on Sunday evening unexpectedly received an app update for something called “Pixel VIPs.”

According to the Play Store listing, Pixel VIPs helps you “stay connected to the people who matter most and never miss a moment from them.” The icon is in the style of Google Contacts, but the ‘head’ is a blue heart and the body a circle.

Quickly and easily connect with the people who matter most to you.

The Google Play screenshots show a widget that looks a lot like Favorite contacts from Google Contacts. In fact, another shows the app’s Highlights tap. In addition to your usual grid of Favorites, some are badged by the VIPs heart icon. Notably, “VIPs can also bypass Do Not Disturb, so you never miss a moment.”

Tapping from the homescreen widget or inside Contacts takes you to a fullscreen feed. You get their profile image and contact options (calling, messaging, and WhatsApp). A card notes any upcoming birthdays, while there’s also:

• Last connection that lets you “see your last call and message with them”
• The Location updates section offers a map with “their real-time location, as well as weather and time 
• You can make one-off Notes with a card-based UI like Google Keep
• Finally, there’s Things to do together with “activity suggestions” 
  • “Tell us what you like to do together: Get better activity suggestions by adding your preferences”

In July 2024, we spotted Google working on this in the Contacts app under the name “besties” before it became “VIPs.” The notes functionality looks very interesting as a centralized repository and a great alternative to jotting something down in Google Keep.

Pixel VIPs — com.google.android.apps.pixel.relationships — is a background service and not a new app that you launch. After installing version 1.0.766545851, nothing is live yet — in Contacts or the widgets picker — so there’s presumably a server-side component to all this.

We’re seeing this Pixel VIPs update on Google Pixel devices running Android 15 (May 2025 patch). It does not appear on the Android 16 QPR1 Beta, with the app listing not loading when you open the link directly. 

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