Android’s upcoming notification summaries might keep away from the pitfalls of Apple Intelligence

Notifications are supposed to be useful, however they will rapidly turn out to be overwhelming. To handle this, Apple launched a notification abstract characteristic in iOS, and Google is creating an identical instrument for Android. Whereas we nonetheless don’t know when the characteristic will launch, we’ve found new particulars within the newest Android 16 beta that reveal the way it will perform.

As we first reported in March, Google is engaged on a characteristic that can summarize your notifications, very similar to in iOS 18. Nonetheless, Google appears to be taking a extra centered method, probably to keep away from points which have plagued Apple’s implementation. As an alternative of summarizing every little thing, Android will solely summarize “dialog notifications.” These are a selected kind for messages that seem in a devoted area within the notification panel, have their very own part within the share sheet, and may be opened as floating bubbles over different apps.

As a result of this characteristic is restricted to dialog notifications, it ought to solely summarize direct messages and group chats, not information or promotional alerts. This method would keep away from the most important pitfall of Apple’s model, which drew criticism for inaccurately summarizing information articles. Nonetheless, it wouldn’t remedy one other main problem: Google nonetheless can’t assure a wonderfully correct abstract, even for conversations.

That’s as a result of the characteristic makes use of AI to generate summaries. Whereas generative AI is highly effective, it isn’t good, which is why Android will warn customers that summaries “could comprise errors.” To enhance accuracy, the characteristic will solely course of “longer messages” and “group conversations,” giving the AI extra context and decreasing the probability of errors. If you happen to discover summaries from particular apps unhelpful, you may disable them individually by navigating to Settings > Notifications > Notification summaries > Handle apps.

Hopefully, you received’t must micromanage this characteristic, as Google is designing it to be conservative. As an illustration, we’ve realized that Android will solely summarize notifications that comprise between 25 and 200 phrases, with a cap of fifty summaries per day. Moreover, summaries are generated three minutes after a notification is obtained, probably to preserve assets or to not interrupt customers as they’re studying it. Curiously, Google is explicitly excluding Gmail for now, suggesting the corporate could also be experimenting with opening up the characteristic to non-conversation messages. Because the characteristic remains to be in growth, these particular parameters might change earlier than its ultimate launch.

Because the characteristic isn’t dwell but, we don’t have a demo to indicate off, however we do know what it ought to seem like. Based mostly on these code adjustments, the summarized textual content will solely seem when a dialog notification is collapsed, with the unique content material presumably proven when it’s expanded. The abstract itself can be a most of three strains, seem in italics, and be preceded by the next icon:

(This text’s hero picture accommodates a crude mockup of what the characteristic would possibly seem like.)

Whereas that app is on the market on many Android gadgets, we suspect the characteristic can be restricted to the handful of telephones that assist Gemini Nano, the on-device model of Google’s AI mannequin. Given the privateness implications, it’s very possible this characteristic will use Gemini Nano to course of notifications on-device. We’re guessing the characteristic will debut on the upcoming Pixel 10 collection earlier than it rolls out to older Gemini Nano-capable gadgets just like the Pixel 8 and 9, however we don’t actually know. We’ll possible study extra about Google’s rollout plans quickly, and hopefully, it’ll land alongside the opposite AI-powered “notification organizer” characteristic.

What do you consider Android’s upcoming notification abstract characteristic? Do you suppose it’ll be higher than Apple’s model? Tell us within the feedback under!