Would you want your phone to guess the next thing you'll do and have it ready? Google appears to be testing a feature that aims to do exactly that.
What Google is testing
Hidden inside a Play Services beta (reportedly version 25.49.32), a new service called Contextual Suggestions has started showing up for a small set of Android users. You can reportedly find it at Settings > Google Services > All services > Others when it's enabled on a device. The idea: watch patterns — location, routine, app activity — and surface the right app or action at the right time. Think of your workout playlist appearing when you reach the gym, or your phone nudging you to cast a weekly sports stream to your TV around kickoff.
This isn't a rebrand of Pixel's Magic Cue so much as an attempt to take the same design goals — in-context suggestions across apps — and ship a more generalized, Play Services-driven version to a wider range of phones. Magic Cue debuted on the Pixel 10 as a flagship, device-tied experience that leans on Gemini models; Contextual Suggestions looks like Google trying to productize that capability across Android without locking it to a single handset.
How it would work (and what’s unclear)
Google's short description says Contextual Suggestions will offer 'helpful suggestions from apps and services based on routine activities and locations.' The feature appears to use on-device models and Play Services as the delivery channel, which means it could reach many brands of phones without needing a full OS update.
Key technical points unearthed so far:
- Appears to run through Google Play Services rather than a single OEM's UI layer.
- Uses on-device processing in an 'encrypted' area, according to the settings blurb.
- Keeps suggestion data for up to 60 days by default, with a manual 'Manage your data' option to delete sooner.
- Toggle the feature off entirely.
- Data auto-deletes after 60 days by default.
- Manual deletion via a management page; sharing data (for example, in a bug report) is opt-in.
What remains unknown: how deep the integration will be with third-party apps, whether apps can expose actions to the system, and whether heavier AI features will fall back to cloud processing on lower-end devices. The Pixel 10 used Gemini Nano models for Magic Cue; Contextual Suggestions references AI but doesn’t publicly commit to the same on-device model across the board.
Privacy: design choices and lingering concerns
Google's notes emphasize local processing and encryption, and that apps can't read the underlying Contextual Suggestions data. Those controls matter: behavioral predictions feel useful until they start surfacing personal details in unexpected ways.
Practical privacy features mentioned so far:
Still, the idea of a system watching locations, app usage, and routine habits will inevitably raise eyebrows. The risk is less about raw capability and more about how transparently Google surfaces controls, and how granular users can be about what contexts get observed.
Why this could matter for Android
If Google nails the balance between helpfulness and control, Contextual Suggestions could be one of those small system-level improvements that quietly changes daily phone use. Because it runs through Play Services, Google can iterate independently of full OS updates and potentially make the feature available to many devices faster than carrier- or OEM-delivered software.
There are broader implications, too. Tighter integration with on-device AI (the same family of tech powering some Gemini features) could mean phones start anticipating tasks across Calendar, Photos, Messages, and more. That’s similar territory to other platform efforts: Apple's Siri Suggestions and Samsung's routines have tried versions of this, but Google’s reach through Play Services and its AI investments give it a unique angle. For context on how Google is grafting Gemini into other products, see how Gemini Deep Research is being used in Gmail and Drive integrations, and how mapping and navigation are getting conversational AI with Google Maps' Gemini copilot.
Limits and likely rollout
Expect an incremental, conservative rollout. Not every Android phone has the local horsepower for advanced on-device models, so Google may ship a simpler rule-based version to older devices and reserve richer, AI-driven predictions for newer handsets. Pixel owners already saw the concept with the Pixel 10's Magic Cue — and if you followed the Pixel's retail cycle, that device has been the showcase for these features, even popping up in earlier promotional notes like the recent Pixel 10 discounts and availability chatter.
For developers, Play Services-based delivery could open the door to APIs or standardized ways to expose actions to the system. That would be the real multiplier: once third-party apps can opt in cleanly, the suggestions get genuinely useful outside Google’s own apps.
A small note for testers: if you’re running Play Services beta and spot Contextual Suggestions, poke around Settings > Google Services > All services > Others and the manage data options. Google has given early testers the toggle and the ability to scrub history — use both if you want to experiment without committing to long-term tracking.
Google hasn't announced a timeline or full list of supported apps yet. But the experiment sketches a practical future: phones that do less reacting and more quietly preparing. Whether people embrace that depends on usefulness, transparency, and trust — and those are things software updates alone can't buy.