Google’s Magic Cue on Pixel – Awesome or You Have No Idea What It Is?

AI mostly sucks, I think it’s pretty safe to say. The AI Kool-Aid was hit harder than 5G hype and the promises made have not even come close to making it to reality. Sure, AI has some uses, none of which involve Nano Banana and imagery and video slop, by the way. Where AI may one day be beneficial is in the automation or behind-the-scenes work it could do to make your daily life easier. Things like Google’s new Magic Cue are certainly pushing things in the right direction, while the side of AI that steals from artists is not.

So let’s talk about Magic Cue!

For those who can’t remember the introduction of Magic Cue from the launch of the Pixel 10 series, it’s recap time. This feature, which is only available on the Pixel 10 series of phones, is a suggestion engine of sorts that works across apps in order to surface information just when you need it. That’s vague, so here are some examples of what it can do.

• Google Messages: Someone could text asking about dinner and Magic Cue could instantly surface a quick reply with information about the restaurant. Someone could ask you for a person’s phone number, to which Magic Cue would then present that info as a quick reply action. They could talk about an event and then your Calendar could be there as a shortcut to add to.
• Weather app: If you had planned a vacation and that vacation was almost here, the Weather app would know that and then present that location as a weather location to start following.
• Google Maps: If you’ve recently searched for a location or taken a screenshot of something that could be useful in Maps, it could surface that location as a suggestion in the search bar.
• Phone app: If you go to call an airline or a customer service number about an order, Magic Cue can put reservation or order information on your call screen to make it available during your call.

It’s that last one that got me thinking about Magic Cue today. I was cruising through reddit and someone on the GooglePixel subreddit mentioned “actually helpful AI.” That caught my attention because as I mentioned earlier, there isn’t a lot of AI that is actually helpful. When I jumped into that thread, the person mentioned that they had recently called a store to try to exchange an item and the Phone app pulled up their order info from Gmail on the call screen to make it available. They were indeed talking about Magic Cue.

Others chimed in with similar experiences, like when they’ve had to call Home Depot (pulled up order number) or to cancel an appointment (pulled up Calendar event). Another person called Magic Cue “underrated.” It is the holiday season still in the US, so the thread hasn’t exactly caught fire in comments, but I wanted to see if you have had similar or positive happenings with Magic Cue.

Are you noticing it pop-up more often throughout your Google apps or not at all? Do you know how to turn it on? Did you know your Pixel 10 even had Magic Cue?