Google's June 2025 Pixel Drop: AI-Powered Features and Accessibility Enhancements

Google's June Pixel drop is here! 7 cool new upgrades rolling out to your phone soon

Pixel phones are about to get some new features and updates, thanks to the latest upgrade from Google. If you're a Pixel phone user, be prepared for some cool new features. With the June Pixel Drop, your Pixel will become more helpful, personalized, and accessible. These new features will start rolling out today; however, you can expect the rollout to take a few days (or weeks) to reach every supported Pixel device. What's new in the June Pixel Drop? Let's dive in. Also: Your Android phone is getting 4 big upgrades for free, thanks to Android 16 With this new feature, you can turn specific friends and family members into VIPs. The VIPs widget makes it easier to stay connected to your favorite people. You'll want to add as much information as you can for each VIP -- such as birthdays, email, home addresses, and preferences -- to get the most out of the feature. Once you've made someone a VIP, you'll be able to view your last call and message with them and even allow them to bypass Do Not Disturb. You can keep notes on your VIPs, view their locations, and find things to do together. It's also important to note that sensitive data about your VIPs does not leave your phone. Thanks to Pixel Studio and generative AI, you can now create a sticker for nearly anything, directly from Gboard. Type whatever you want into the prompt, choose an emotion, and send away. You'll even be able to make stickers from your camera roll; AI will remove the background in the photo, so the subject in the image becomes the focus of your sticker. Another big deal with the June Pixel Drop is that existing Pixel features will be rolling out to more phones and more users. For example, Satellite SOS is now available in Australia, and the Recorder app can now provide AI-generated summaries of recordings in French and German. Finally, Clear voice (within the Recorder app) -- which allows you to remove background noises from recordings -- is coming to Pixel 8 phones. When taking a photo, you can now tap the question mark icon in the upper right corner of the Pixel Camera app to see visual examples of what each mode does, as well as how-to instructions. This education hub will go a long way to help you get the best shots. Accessibility gets a bump with the help of live search within the Magnifier app, so you can learn more about your surroundings in real time (without having to first take a photo). Also, if you type what you're looking for (such as a menu entry), Magnifier will highlight matches on the screen as you move your device, and a vibration will indicate it's found something. Also: The best Google Pixel phones to buy: Expert tested and reviewed The LE audio features are now usable with hearing aids on the Pixel 9 and newer phones running Android 16. This will make it possible for you to take calls on the go, access your hearing aid presets, and change ambient volume throughout the Pixel phone. When you watch a sporting event, the commentators never fail to add a bit of color to the action. With Expressive Captions, the text will better match the emotion, intensity, and nuance of what's being said. You'll soon be able to fine-tune your photos in just a few easy steps. AI-powered suggestions can help you enhance your photos with a single tap, and instant access to recommended tools (based on what you've selected for editing) will give you complete control over photo editing. Also: I'm a diehard Pixel user, but this 'anti-flagship' blew my 9 Pro out of the water For more information on the June Pixel Drop, check out the new features coming to Android directly from Google. Get the morning's top stories in your inbox each day with our Tech Today newsletter.

Eight New Features Coming in the June 2025 Pixel Drop

David Nield is a technology journalist from Manchester in the U.K. who has been writing about gadgets and apps for more than 20 years. Google is rolling out the finished, stable version of Android 16 today, while also releasing a new Pixel Drop for June 2025. These drops bring exclusive features to Pixel phones and tablets, on top of the general Android codebase that's available to every Android phone manufacturer, including Samsung, Nothing, Sony, and Motorola. This time around there are several new features to talk about. These should show up automatically on all currently supported Pixel phones and tablets in the coming days -- so right back to the Pixel 6 -- but you can also check manually via System > Software updates in Settings on your device. Your Pixel VIPs are the most important contacts on your device, and now they get their own special widget as a spin-off from the Contacts app. This widget lets you see recent messages and calls from these people across messaging apps, including WhatsApp, as well as more details about them (including their birthdays and notable anniversaries). These special VIPs get extra permission to bypass the Do Not Disturb mode on your Pixel, which should make sure you don't miss anything important when notifications are muted. If you're currently sharing your location with these Very Important contacts, these details appear in the widget too, but all this information is kept locally on your device. Stickers made with generative AI are coming to the default Pixel keyboard, Gboard, with the latest Pixel Drop. With the help of Pixel Studio, you can create stickers of anything you like: An excited jelly avocado, a sad starfish wearing sunglasses, and sparkly blue sneakers are the examples Google gives. And yes, it does sound a lot like Genmoji on the iPhone. As you might have gathered from the mention of Pixel Studio, this will only work if you have a phone from the Pixel 9 series, as your device needs a certain amount of AI power to produce graphics without contacting the cloud. If you've got a compatible device, the new feature will be available via a button above any text input box when Gboard is enabled. If you use Live Captions on your Android device, you'll know it can be a useful way of getting live subtitles on screen for video and audio content, even if they weren't included in the original file or stream. Expressive Captions adds more feeling to this feature, so you'll see labels like "whispering" or "yawning" alongside the actual words themselves. If words are stretched out -- like "gooooooooal!" -- that should show up too. This feature isn't completely new, because it was announced last month for Android 15 devices: As far as I can make out from Google's announcement, it seems the Pixel Drop may be introducing more of these expressions, or possibly making them more widely available. The new Pixel Drop includes several smaller new features worth mentioning, including improved support for hearing aids with LE audio features: You can now access presets and volume controls from inside a dedicated panel on your phone, as long as it's a Pixel 9 or newer handset running Android 16 (rolling out at the same time as this update). Then there are improvements to the Magnifier app (exclusive to Pixel phones), which now incorporates live search. You can type what you're looking for (like something on a menu), then move your phone camera around, with matches highlighted in real time and accompanied by a little vibration. You no longer need to take a photo first and then search. If you own a Google Pixel 8a or newer, this latest Pixel Drop brings with it a new battery health indicator screen, which we were first made aware of in April. It shows details of the battery's remaining capacity, based on charging and usage patterns, and the feature should help you get more use out of your battery (and show you when it needs replacing). There's a neat little feature arriving in the default Camera app for Pixel phones and tablets: If you tap the new question mark icon that appears in the corner of the Camera screen, you get a visual guide to what each camera mode does, plus some instructions on how to use it. The idea is to "help you get the most out of your Pixel Camera," Google says. In its June 2025 Pixel Drop announcement, Google has again mentioned the enhanced AI editing tools coming to Google Photos that it also announced last month -- for Android and iOS devices. This upgrade is still coming soon, and apparently won't be a Pixel exclusive, but it's worth flagging that Google has again mentioned it in its latest blog post. Finally, a couple of notes on availability: The Pixel satellite SOS feature that lets you get help when you're beyond wifi and cellular range is expanding to Australia, while the Pixel-exclusive Recorder app is adding French and German to the list of languages it can work with when it comes to transcribing and summarizing audio conversations.

Google Adds Pixel VIPs Widget, Gboard AI Stickers With June 2025 Pixel Drop

Features like AI sticker generation on Gboard are exclusive to the Pixel 9 series Google's June 2025 Pixel Drop is rolling out alongside the company's Android 16 update for Pixel smartphones. The company has introduced a new Pixel VIPs widget that makes it easier for people to stay in touch with their favourite contacts, while users can now generate AI stickers directly in Gboard. The camera app on Pixel phones will now provide users with hints on how to use various camera features on their handset. Meanwhile, existing Pixel-exclusive features are rolling out to users in more regions. Users can now add a new Pixel VIPs widget to their home screen for quick access to their favourite contacts, according to details shared by the company. This widget is provided by the Contacts app on Pixel phones and uses information provided by the user such as addresses, emails, and birthdays to surface important information and reminders. Google also says that it will show users details of their last call or message from these contacts, and they can bypass the Do Not Disturb mode that silences incoming calls and notifications. The built-in camera app on Pixel smartphones has been updated with a new feature that provides inspiration various camera modes on the device, including telephoto, panorama, Night Sight, and Astro. Users can access these camera hints via the question mark icon in the top right corner of the app. Gboard users can now generate AI stickers, directly from the keyboard. Keep in mind that these are AI-generated stickers created by Pixel Studio, that require the company's latest Pixel 9 series to function. Users can enter a prompt and select an "emotion", and Gboard will generate a custom emoji using AI. Pixel phones connected to hearing aids with Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) features will allow users to take calls via these devices, as well as access their presets. Users can type to search for objects while using the Magnifier app on a Pixel phone, and these will be highlighted when the app finds them. These features are rolling out to users alongside the Android 16 update, which was released on Tuesday. Meanwhile, existing Pixel-exclusive features such as Satellite SOS is coming to Australia, while AI summaries in the Recorder app are now available in French and German.