Pixel Recorder’s Gemini Nano-powered ‘Summarize’ requires 1GB download

Abner Li | Dec 8 2023 - 12:19 pm PT

In addition to Gboard Smart Reply, Gemini Nano on the Pixel 8 Pro powers a “Summarize’ feature in Recorder.

Summarize requires an update to Recorder 4.2.20231031.x, which contains several strings detailing how it will work. Google explains that “Pixel Recorder uses a large language model to summarize your transcript content” and that you must “Download model to continue.” If you’re not on Wi-Fi, there’s a “This update requires 1GB of mobile data” message.

For reference, Gemini Nano comes in two versions: “1.8B (Nano-1) and 3.25B (Nano-2) parameters, targeting low and high memory devices respectively.” Android AICore is presumably involved in – if not entirely responsible for – the download process.

I have not seen that prompt myself, but others are starting to see it. I have not been able to get Summarize running. People do see the “Summarize” button at the top of some longer transcriptions, but it always returns a “Transcript is too long” message: “Summarization works best with medium-length transcripts.”

However, given that it consistently doesn’t work, that message might be a bug related to how the model hasn’t rolled out/been downloaded yet. It’s not clear how you manually trigger that download.

There should also be a “Transcript is too short” prompt, which I’ve yet to encounter. In fact, I do not see the Summarize button in sessions that are shorter in length.