Google is one of the most ardent proponents of generative AI technology, as evidenced by the recent launch of the Pixel 10 series. The phones were announced with more than 20 new AI experiences, according to Google. However, one of them is already being pulled from the company’s phones. If you go looking for your Daily Hub, you may be disappointed. Not that disappointed, though, as it has been pulled because it didn’t do very much.
Many of Google’s new AI features only make themselves known in specific circumstances, for example when Magic Cue finds an opportunity to suggest an address or calendar appointment based on your screen context. The Daily Hub, on the other hand, asserted itself multiple times throughout the day. It appeared at the top of the Google Discover feed, as well as in the At a Glance widget right at the top of the home screen.
Just a few weeks after release, Google has pulled the Daily Hub preview from Pixel 10 devices. You will no longer see it in Google Discover nor in the home screen widget. After being spotted by 9to5Google, the company has issued a statement explaining its plans.
“To ensure the best possible experience on Pixel, we’re temporarily pausing the public preview of Daily Hub for users. Our teams are actively working to enhance its performance and refine the personalized experience. We look forward to reintroducing an improved Daily Hub when it’s ready,” a Google spokesperson said.
It’s not surprising that Google has hit pause on Daily Hub. Google’s approach to mobile AI relies on the Tensor processor’s capable NPU. Pixel phones process your personal data on-device rather than sending it to the cloud, which is how Daily Hub is supposed to glean insights into your life. The problem is that it doesn’t do that very well.
As we mentioned in our review of the Pixel 10 series, Daily Hub’s premise is similar to Samsung’s Now Brief. They both pull in data from your apps and run it all through on-device AI models to create a digest of your life that is refreshed multiple times per day. Samsung has continued promoting Now Brief as its chief AI innovation despite the fact that it rarely offers more than the weather and calendar reminders. Google’s Daily Hub was in a similar place, but it may have been even less useful.
In our testing, Daily Hub rarely showed anything beyond the weather, suggested videos, and AI search prompts. When it did integrate calendar data, it seemed unable to differentiate between the user’s own calendar and data from shared calendars. This largely useless report was pushed to the At a Glance widget multiple times per day, making it more of a nuisance than helpful.
Smartphones are overflowing with personal data, which is one of the reasons they are such attractive targets for hackers. Despite this, both Samsung and Google have found little success generating useful daily insights with on-device AI models. We wait with bated breath to see if Google can make Daily Hub worth using when it returns.
