Google spotted prepping a powerful theming upgrade for Pixels

Google Pixels lag a little behind the competition where customization options are concerned. While you can tweak some elements of your experience, all the best changes can only really be made with a custom launcher.

Part of that may be coming to an end though, as Google seems to be working on AI-powered icon themes that will help your home page match whatever color theme you’re going for.

Google is experimenting with AI to fix a longstanding problem

Google has been knocking at this particular door for a while now. At the moment, Pixel devices have the option to turn on ” themed icons” in their Wallpaper settings menu. This tints app icons on your home page to match the dominant colors of your current wallpaper, and it’s a handy little tool if you want to quickly match up your home page’s style.

However, this only works if an app developer has supplied a monochromatic version of their icon, which not every developer does, and that means your home page can end up looking like a jumble of matched icons and not.

Google may have come up with a solution to this, and like everything else, it involves AI.

Spotted in the latest Android Canary build by Android Authority, new strings in the code hint at the idea that AI could alter icons on the fly. Instead of a simple toggle for Themed Icons, there are now four options to pick from:

• Default — which just shows the icons as they are.
• Minimal — a monochromatic version of an icon.
• AI icon.
• Create.

We’ve left the last two unexplained because, well, we don’t know what they do. However, it’s not a far shout to assume an “AI icon” would use AI to create a version of an icon to match your theme, and while “Create” is incredibly ambiguous, it’s not hard to imagine this will let you replace an icon entirely.

In fairness, this is exactly the sort of thing that AI should be good for — filling in gaps that nobody else is in a hurry to fill. While I’m sure there are going to be issues around copyright where fiddling with icons are concerned, a company like Google can spot those and work around them. While this isn’t going to be huge news for everyone, since some people just don’t care if their icons match or not.