Google's Call Screen is the best use of AI on Pixel phones

Summary

Like other phone makers, Google talks a big game when it comes to new AI features.
While the utility of some AI tools is rather dubious, I’m personally a big fan of the Pixel’s Call Screen feature.
Call Screen is precisely the right way to go about adding AI into a phone — generative images and the like feel superfluous by comparison.

In 2025, you’d be pretty hard-pressed to find a newly released smartphone that doesn’t tout advanced AI features in its sales pitch. Whether we’re talking about the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, the iPhone 16 Pro Max, the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, or any other number of high-end handsets, AI has become the name of the game when it comes to flashy new software experiences.

Phone makers have been scrambling to jump on the generative AI (genAI) bandwagon, attempting to one-up each other with a mix of writing tools, generative image creation apps, and more. This has resulted in a bizarre reality in which Apple Intelligence ads display mice eating slices of pizza, and Samsung ads proclaim that the latest Galaxy AI phone is, in fact, a Galaxy AI phone.

As time marches forward, however, I feel a sense of AI oversaturation brewing under the surface. Not all AI features have proven particularly useful in the real world, and it feels as if the dam is on track to burst à la dot-com bubble.

That being said, there are rare instances in which an AI-powered feature genuinely speaks to me. Case in point: Google’s Call Screen feature, which is exclusively available on modern Pixel phones. The tool uses AI to detect spam calls, and intelligently shuts them down before they can become a nuisance.

Phone by Google

Google’s first-party dialer that ships on Pixel handsets, the Phone app comes with useful AI features like Call Screening that help combat spam calls.

Not all artificial intelligence features are made equal

AI features should work silently in the background, without the need for user input

Pocket-lint / Google

Google’s Pixel Call Screen is a genuinely useful tool, and it’s absolutely the right way to harness the power of AI. Running entirely on-device (without the need for an active Wi-Fi or cellular data connection), the feature analyzes incoming phone calls and declines the spam-worthy ones on your behalf.

To be clear, call filtering itself isn’t a new technology. Rather, it’s the use of on-device AI algorithms, mixed with Google’s large spam number database, that makes the feature stand out from other solutions.

Google’s Pixel Call Screen is a genuinely useful tool, and it’s absolutely the right way to harness the power of AI.

What makes Call Screen distinctly different from many other AI features, is its frictionless design. There’s no notification prompting you that a spam call is underway, and there are no issues with the tool working in non-connected areas. Most importantly, the feature does its job — it works rather well, in fact.

Call Screen also solves a very real, very annoying problem. Telemarketing, robocalling, and scam artist phone calls continue to run rampant, and they bother me to no end whenever I switch my SIM card to, say, an iPhone.

Call Screen also solves a very real, very annoying problem.

Call Screen excels because it works silently behind the scenes, and it does so without falling into the trap of solving a problem that doesn’t exist. As fascinating as it is to generate a sketched rendition of my face using GenAI, or to have a block of text rewritten in Shakespearean English, I haven’t touched such features beyond using them as glorified party tricks.

For a while now, Google’s Pixel mantra has been to create the smartest smartphone of them all. I hope to see the company continue to add Call Screen-esque features to the Pixel experience over time. If it can successfully do so, the Pixel might just overtake its AI-touting competition in the intelligence department by quite a large margin.