Google announced its fall lineup of Pixel phones today: three standard phones and a second tablet-esque folding model. There are new chips, new cameras, Satellite SOS, and some notable promises, like the 9 phones being "twice as durable" as their Pixel 8 equivalents and getting seven years of updates. But as you might expect this year, they're primarily showcases for all the things Google's Gemini AI promises to do for you.
Google started making the Tensor mobile SoC because Qualcomm (and everyone else) weren't investing enough in hardware for ML/AI. We just happen to be seeing a lot of years of investment finally culminating now.
Despite all indications that consumers don't want it, that investors are beginning to understand how useless and cost prohibitive it is, they are still pushing it onto consumers.
As long as we can install Graphene, we get a clutter-free phone with plenty of RAM for other uses, and perhaps locallly run privacy friendly AI in the near future.