Summary
- The Pixel 9 series launched with AI-powered features like Call Notes, which provides call recording, transcription, and summaries in the US, where the standard Google Phone app call recording isn’t available. However, Call Notes currently requires manual activation for each call.
- Code previously suggested automatic activation for Call Notes, but this didn’t materialize and was stated by Google to be for internal testing only.
- The latest Phone app beta (v172.0) shows a significant change, renaming the automatic Call Notes setting to “Automatic call recording” with options to automatically record unknown or selected numbers, hinting at a potential future release of automatic call recording for US Pixel 9 users.
Google’s August 2024-released Pixel 9 series is essentially a showcase of Google’s AI prowess. New tools like the Pixel Studio, the Pixel Weather app, Pixel Screenshots, and more were all launched with the flagship series.
Elsewhere, with the Pixel 9 series, Google also unveiled Call Notes, a feature that essentially bridges the gap left by the Google Phone app’s inability to record calls in the US.
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Unlocking seamless call recording in the US, Pixel 9’s Call Notes is an on-device AI-powered feature that lets all involved parties know if and when a call is being recorded. The feature also offers a transcript and a summary of your conversation, offering an easy way for you to recall and review important calls.
Call Notes, however, are only available on a per-call basis, which means that the feature needs to be manually enabled for each and every call that you want to record — via the in-call overflow menu.
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For reference, back in the feature’s early days, code found within the implementation suggested that Call Notes could offer automatic activation for specific calls, with users being able to set the feature on for “All non-contact calls,” “Only incoming, non-contact calls,” “Only outgoing, non-contact call,” and “Never.”
The automatic activation, however, never really materialized. Additionally, a Google spokesperson later clarified that the unearthed code wasn’t meant for public release, and was limited to internal testing.
Now, roughly eight months in, the underlying code still exists in the Phone app, and the latest v172.0 beta also reveals a tweak to the supposedly dormant automatic setting.
Automatic call recording might be close, but don’t get too excited
The dormant automatic Call Notes option has now been tweaked to read “Automatic call recording,” and with subsequent options refined to:
- Automatically record unknown numbers, and
- Automatically record these numbers
Tapping the latter will likely allow users to select specific contacts for automatic call recording.
It’s worth noting that this is simply a setting name tweak, though it could carry significant weight. Why would Google want to change the name and UI of a setting that was only meant for internal testing? The change strongly signals that the tech giant might actually be planning to make the feature accessible to all eager Pixel 9 series users in the US. When that happens, though, is still uncertain.
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