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Key takeaways
- Some newer Pixel phones have a secret notification weapon.
- This feature gives you a quick overview of longer messages.
- These summaries are displayed on your Pixel lock screen.
Google is always trying to make Android a more user-friendly and efficient mobile OS. With the advent of AI, some features can be simplified in ways that would not have been possible without the help of local LLMs.
One such feature is the new Android notification summaries. This feature aims to summarize longer messages from popular messaging apps (such as Google Messages) and present the summaries on your lock screen (not when you're using your phone).
There are a couple of caveats to this. First, because the summarization happens on-device, the power required excludes the Pixel 9a, which leaves the 9, 9 Pro, 10, and 10 Pro. That's not a long list of devices, but it's very possible the feature will eventually trickle down to other devices (so long as they have the hardware capable of doing on-board AI).
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The second caveat is that because those summaries are presented on your lock screen, anyone can see them. For some (such as myself), that's a privacy issue that I'm not keen on dealing with.
However, if you're not as overly concerned about your privacy as I am, the summaries could be a real boon for simplicity.
Let's talk about this feature, shall we?
What are notification summaries?
It's quite simple: when a notification comes in that includes a long text message, Android's built-in AI will summarize that notification and place the summary on your phone's lock screen. If you tap the new notification "pill" on your home screen, a window overlay opens to reveal the summary of that notification.
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Keep in mind that brief messages are not summarized, so you will still have to open and read them as usual. This feature is intended to give you a quick view of the longer messages you receive. With these brief summaries, you can determine (from your lock screen) if a message needs your immediate attention.
With the new feature, you have to enable it (it is disabled by default), and you can determine which apps are included. When you combine this feature with the notification organizer, Android notifications all of a sudden become as good as they have ever been.
Finally, Android notifications are starting to evolve into what Apple has offered on iOS for some time, and it may even be doing so better.
How to enable notification summaries
As I mentioned, the notification summaries feature is disabled by default, but it's quite simple to enable. Here's how:
1. Open Settings
The first thing to do is open the Settings app, which can be done from either your App Drawer or by pulling down the Notification Shade twice and tapping the gear icon in the bottom right corner.
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2. Open Notification settings
From the Settings app, locate and tap Notifications.
You can also venture into the Notification organizer, which is also a handy tool.
3. Enable Notification summaries
On this page, you'll see an On/Off slider. Tap that slider until it's in the On position. Once you've done that, the feature is enabled.
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To enable or not to enable, that is the question.
4. Manage apps
After you've enabled the feature, you'll see the "Manage apps" option at the bottom of the page. Tap that to reveal all of the apps that you have installed that can work with Notification summaries. If you find any apps on that list that you do not want included in the lock screen summaries, tap their associated On/Off sliders until they are in the Off position.
If any of your installed apps present sensitive information, consider disabling them for this feature.
At this point, you can back out of the Settings app. If you've previously disabled notifications on your lock screen, you should now see a notification pill that is dedicated only to those apps that you've enabled for AI summaries. If you tap that pill, it'll reveal the AI-generated summaries.
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I would suggest using this feature only if you get regular, longer messages and need to quickly discern which need your immediate attention. If you do not receive such messages, you should consider turning this feature off (to avoid the potential privacy issues it raises).
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