Google’s Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro may be seen as the annual product refresh of the ‘Quintessential Google Phone’, but after using the Pixel 10 Pro over the last few weeks, it’s clear that the Pixel platform is more than a new phone for consumers; it is Google’s leverage to reshape the smartphone market in its favour.
How does the Pixel 10 Pro illustrate the short-, medium- and long-term markets that Google is addressing through charging, chips, and cues?
Pixel 10 Pro’s Qi2 Standards Play
One of the new features in the Pixel handsets is the use of the Qi2 wireless charging standard. This allows 15W of wireless charging on the Pixel 10, 10 Pro and 10 Pro Fold, and up to 25W on the Pixel 10 Pro XL. Importantly, the magnetic connectors that are part of the standard are built into the handsets. Other manufacturers have supported Qi2 by offering additional cases that hold the magnets.
Why are the magnets important? Primarily, it removes the need for precise manual alignment. Move slightly askew of the inductive charging coil alignment, and speeds would drop. That’s no longer the case with the Pixel family.
While it has been labelled ‘Pixelsnap’, Qi2 is an open standard and is available to all manufacturers. With its inclusion in the Pixel 10 series, you now have easy interoperability with any Qi 2 charging device (and yes, that includes MagSafe accessories for the iPhone; Apple also contributed to the Qi 2 standard). Where there was once a fragmented ecosystem of chargers and peripherals, Google is now signalling that it’s time to bring them all under the same roof.
Take Samsung’s Qi2-Ready approach with the Galaxy S25. When the following Galaxy models are released in 2026, this approach may not be enough. The choice for Samsung, and others, is to follow Google’s lead in adopting this standard, or to remain on the outside with fragmented and potentially proprietary systems. I suspect that many will fall in line in the name of reliable and seamless experiences with a wide range of peripherals.
Pixel 10 Pro Challenges Chip Benchmarking
Starting with the Pixel 6, Google has moved away from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform to its own Tensor Mobile chip design. Samsung fabricated these from the Pixel 6 family through to the Pixel 9 family. With the Pixel 10, Google has switched to TSMC and its 3nm process, but the core philosophy has not changed… move away from trying to gain the highest possible CPU and GPU benchmarks and instead focus on specialized hardware that offers faster and more efficient processing of machine learning and other artificial intelligence approaches.
Notably, Google has developed a new model of Gemini Nano that can run locally on the Tensor G5 chipset. This feeds directly into features such as Magic Cue, which can take in information across your PIM apps and lift out relevant data; real-time voice translation during phone calls, and Camera Coach’s real-time suggestions on framing and lighting for a picture about to be taken.
Google is replacing the question of “which phone is the fastest?” with “which phone is the smartest?”.
This has already impacted the design of smartphone chipsets. A look at the marketing surrounding Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite reveals the emphasis on the Qualcomm AI Engine and its Neural Processing Unit, designed explicitly for on-device AI models. Samsung’s next Exynos chipset is expected to follow a similar path to accommodate AI models.
This move away from raw performance means that the chipsets are no longer measured in isolation. Google is using its own custom-designed silicon, with a proprietary model in Nano, and first-party software such as Magic Cue. That is not easy to replicate.
It will be challenging for other manufacturers to replicate this in their own handsets without relying on Google for support and a deeper partnership. Today, the only place you can experience these AI features is on Pixel.
I’d be curious to see if Google would ever licence Tensor and the associated software. If that were to happen, Google’s position in defining AI-first smartphones would be confirmed.
Pixel 10 Pro Replaces Apps With AI Agents
With all of the additions to the Pixel 10 family, Magic Cue may be the most impactful in the long term. For nearly two decades, Smartphones have been built around a workflow of homescreen to app, to information, back to homescreen, into another app and use the information. Everything is sandboxed, everything is discrete, and it demands that the user be familiar with and have an understanding of their own data to make the best use of their smartphone.
Magic Cue changes that. It is the AI agent built into the operating system that has an understanding of the data in the device. The model can take requests as the prompt, extract the details, and present them to the user along with the request. A message coming in, such as “where are we having coffee?” can be answered by looking across multiple apps and tying the discreet information together.
The information on the phone is the same. How the information is found has changed. You don’t need to go into the messaging app to see how it is or check the notes section in the Contacts app to see your relationship. You don’t need to head into the calendar app to answer the question of when the meeting is, nor do you need to go into a mapping app to know where to go.
Four apps have just been replaced by a Google-powered dialog box.
Google is not alone in working to join up apps through AI agents. Samsung’s Now Brief aims to present relevant information throughout the day to the user, but its AI models are designed to enhance productivity and support creativity. The Pixel software has similar tools, but it’s the big swing of Magic Cue that sets up the Pixel 10 as the defining point of the future.
Currently, Magic Cue may only work with a limited number of apps, but as a demonstration of where Google wants to go, that is all that is needed. The more personal information your device can access, the more you can bypass your long-standing apps in place of an active AI agent in your hand.
That requires users not only to trust the AI to deliver the correct answer but also to trust the AI agent with a significant volume of personal data. This may be the biggest hurdle for Google to overcome. The smooth implementation of Magic Cue, utilising a subset of apps and a subset of data, can serve as a salve for these concerns in the future.
Pixel 10 Pro Is A Link To The Future
The addition of Qi2 sets the Pixel up as the benchmark for Android peripherals, the Tensor G5 aims to remove the concept of raw performance as a key indicator of progress, and Magic Cue showcases the vision of a post-app world where information is processed rather than displayed.
The Pixel 10 has many new features, subtle tweaks, stylistic changes, and they are all… trees. Lovely, new, shiny trees, but trees nonetheless. If you step back and look at all the changes in the Pixel 10 family, you might get a glance at the new forest Google is growing in front of you.
Now read more about how the Pixel 10 Pro can shape the smartphone future…
