Google Pixel 8’s Audio Magic Eraser Silences Annoying Noise in Your Videos – CNET [CNET]

The new phone’s AI capabilities let you eliminate unwanted sound from videos you shoot with your Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro.

Google on Wednesday launched its new Pixel 8 series of phones that are powered by the new Tensor G3 processor. Previous Google-designed silicon has enabled AI features like Magic Eraser that wipe out unwanted elements from photos, and the Tensor G3 enables a new trick that does the same to strip out annoying background noise in video — called, appropriately, Audio Magic Eraser.

When activated, Audio Magic Eraser uses AI to automatically quiet the parts of the video that aren’t the main focus — on stage at the Pixel 8 launch, for example, the presenter showed a video of a baby goo-gooing on camera, and Audio Magic Eraser cut out the loud dog barking in the background. 

Audio Magic Eraser broadly categorizes types of noise for users to pick and choose which parts they want stripped out — in Google’s video above, they’re bucketed into speech, crowd, noise, wind and music. That makes it less manually selective than its Magic Eraser photo counterpart, but still offers some control over what you want to take out and leave in your videos. 

Google was coy about whether the new Audio Magic Eraser would be coming to older Pixel models (other Tensor-enabled features in the Pixel 7 had trickled down to the Pixel 6, for instance) or the still-new Pixel Fold, for that matter. For now, the only phones using Audio Magic Eraser are the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro.

Read more: Google Pixel 8 Cameras Supercharge Video to Lead Photography Upgrades