Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Pixel 9 phones in the US currently require manually activating Call Notes on every call to record, transcribe, and summarize them.
- Google has been spotted testing automatic call recording within the Call Notes feature, indicating that automatic call recording could finally make its way to the US.
- However, Google has previously stated that automatic activation wasn’t meant for public release and was limited to internal testing only. So the fate of the feature remains in the air.
The Google Phone app, which is preloaded on several Android flagships, offers call recording in several regions globally, but not in the US (even though you can legally record calls in most states after adequate consent). Instead, users in the US have to use the Pixel 9’s Call Notes feature to record a phone call. However, Call Notes is only available per call, requiring users to consciously activate it whenever they want to record, transcribe, or summarize a phone call. Now, Google has been spotted working on automatic call recording within the Call Notes feature that would make life a lot easier, but we aren’t sure if the company ever plans to release it.
An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
Currently, on Pixel 9 series devices in the US, you can activate the Call Notes feature during a call to start recording it and receive an AI-generated summary and even the call transcript.
However, this action is deliberate and manual, as you have to activate the feature by tapping the Call Notes button during every call you want to record. Needless to say, it’s pretty cumbersome if you want to use the feature on many calls.
But what if you could generate call notes automatically? Google was spotted deliberating on the idea in August 2024, with settings to automatically start Call Notes for various phone calls.
However, in a statement to Android Police back then, a Google spokesperson mentioned that the code related to automatic activation wasn’t meant for public release and was limited to internal testing only. Consequently, automatic Call Notes did not roll out to Pixel 9 users in the US at the time.
Curiously, these options still exist within the Phone by Google app. With Phone v172.0 beta, Google has now tweaked the automatic Call Notes option to Automatic Call Recording, switching from an automatic summary to automatic recording. The options are also now limited to these two:
- Automatically record unknown numbers
- Automatically record these numbers
We managed to activate the settings page for the feature, and here’s what it looks like right now:
The above-mentioned new options are similar to the Call Recording settings, which users in several countries already have.
However, the US doesn’t have the Call Recording feature in the Phone by Google app, so this is one roundabout way of bringing that functionality to the region. The revised settings also don’t mean Call Notes will automatically summarize or transcribe the recordings. But, presuming you have the recordings stored for later use, you can always select to do so later on calls that you need summaries and transcriptions for, so it won’t be all that inconvenient.
It remains to be seen whether Google finally allows US users to automatically record calls and work its Call Notes magic. For now, users in the US must stick to the manual and cumbersome method of individually beginning Call Notes for every call they need to record, transcribe, and summarize. Given its utility and the progress the company has already made on the feature, we hope it will be released soon.
