Google Debuts A.I.-Powered Phones in Latest Attempt to Best the iPhone

When Google released its first Android smartphone in 2008, the company’s founders slid onstage in roller skates. One of them, Larry Page, said the device was as advanced as a computer had been a few years before.

On Tuesday, executives left the skates behind but kept to the tone of that pitch: Google crammed all the cutting-edge technology it could into the latest Pixel phones. The devices are chock-full of artificial intelligence, to let users engage with a conversational assistant, edit people into photos and search for information found in their screenshots, the company said in blog posts.

Google is hoping the features will help the four new phones — including the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro and the double-wide Pixel 9 Fold — finally overcome consumer apathy to its smartphone ambitions. It is Google’s latest attempt to make a splash in a smartphone market dominated by its partner Samsung, as well as by Apple, which has already detailed the A.I. capabilities coming to the next generation of iPhones.

Google’s effort to make itself a significant player in consumer hardware has been an uphill climb. It has about 5 percent of the smartphone market in the United States, and generally less than that in other major markets, like Britain, Germany and India, according to Statista, which compiles data.

The company gets most of its revenue from advertising on its search engine and YouTube video platform. Last week, a federal judge ruled that Google had acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in online search, in a decision that could upend the company’s lucrative business model. Google said it would appeal the decision and “remain focused on making products that people find helpful.”

Google has tried to use the excitement around generative A.I. chatbots and features to reset the competition. In April, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, announced that he was merging its teams that develop Android with those that engineer Pixel devices and other hardware. The hope was that combining the two would make it easier to incorporate more A.I. into the products and speed up decision-making.