Honor’s using AI to make your smartphone photos even better… and bigger

Honor has announced a bunch of AI-powered updates as part of a partnership with Google Cloud. The highlights include AI Outpainting, an AI eraser, and a teaser about its upcoming product line that’s set to launch next month.

Of all the announcements, AI Outpainting seems like the biggest deal. This is a tool that’s similar to Photoshop’s Generative Expand, and it should make framing your photos the correct way a less stressful affair, all because AI can always fill in the blanks.

The company hasn’t shared too much about Outpainting or how it’ll work, but here’s what we know. AI Outpainting arrives as part of Honor’s AiMAGE suite, and it relies on Google’s Imagen model to work. It lets you zoom out and expand your photo until it’s up to twice the original size. You can also reframe and rotate your photo without losing anything; AI will fill in the blanks that might appear while you do that.

Honor’s Eric Fang had this to say on AI Outpainting: “It’s a game-changer. It allows users to focus on capturing the decisive moment without worrying about perfect framing. The optimized generative fill ensures that the expanded images are seamlessly integrated, even in complex scenes like buildings and landscapes.”

AI Eraser marks the second tool in Honor’s new AI-powered arsenal. We’ve seen this tool in many of the best smartphones before, so it doesn’t need much of an introduction. It lets you remove unwanted objects by circling them or tapping them, and Honor’s AI tool will then fill in the blank area with something that fits.

Honor has also teased that its upcoming products will lean even more heavily into AI, all thanks to that Google Cloud collaboration. The new lineup, set to launch in May 2025, leverages Google Veo, which is Google’s video generation tool. It’s unclear what exactly this partnership will entail, but Honor promises that it’ll interpret user commands and generate videos that “represent their creative vision.”