Descriptions written on your phone by Gemini Nano.
Short captions and detailed descriptions generated on supported devices. They make every photo searchable and never leave the device.
Gemini Nano on supported devices
A caption makes a photo findable by words it never had. Pixel Gallery generates them with Gemini Nano, Google’s on-device language model, where the hardware supports it.
What gets generated
- Caption: one short line describing the photo, shown in the viewer and used by search.
- Description: a longer, more detailed text for photos where it adds value.
- Share title: when you share a photo, a short descriptive title and credit line can be generated on the spot.
Generation is rate-limited per hour so it does not monopolize the device, and it runs as part of the background pipeline.
Why it matters for search
Labels tell you there is a dog. A caption tells you the dog is asleep on a red couch. Both the caption and the description feed the full-text index in Search & Discover, which makes keyword search noticeably better even without the semantic search model.
Device support
Gemini Nano through AICore is available on a growing set of devices. Pixel Gallery checks availability at runtime and simply skips the caption step elsewhere. There is no cloud fallback by design.
Questions about ai captions
Which phones can do this?
Devices with Gemini Nano available through Android's AICore. On other devices the step is skipped and the rest of the app works normally.
Can I edit a caption?
You can add your own description to any photo, and your text is searchable alongside the generated caption.
Does the caption get sent to Google?
No. Gemini Nano runs on the device through Android's private compute layer. The image and the caption stay on the phone.
Free on Google Play
Requires Android 13 or newer. No account. Optional one-time Premium upgrade.