Google’s Tensor G7 has one last chance to save the Pixel 12

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The Pixel 11 series has left Google with something of a dilemma. Based on our time with the phones so far, they remain among the most enjoyable Android handsets to use, thanks largely to Google’s software experience and a growing collection of genuinely useful features. But our testing of the Tensor G6 shows that Google’s custom silicon is falling further behind rival flagship chips; early gaming tests suggest a familiar litany of issues; and a week with the Pixel 11 Pro suggests that many of Google’s newest AI tricks aren’t yet strong enough to make up the difference.

That’s not necessarily a problem for the Pixel 11, but it could become one for the Pixel 12.

Google doesn’t need to build the fastest smartphone chip in the world, and Tensor doesn’t need to win every benchmark to justify its existence. However, the Tensor G7 needs to close some of the enormous performance gaps, improve efficiency, and provide a hardware foundation for AI features that are actually worth using. Otherwise, Google risks reaching a point where the reasons to buy a Pixel increasingly rest on what the company did several years ago rather than what it’s doing today.

The most obvious place for Tensor G7 to improve is performance. We saw some meaningful gains with the G6, particularly on the CPU and TPU side, but Google’s latest silicon remains well behind competing flagship processors. The GPU situation is even harder to defend, with rival chips offering more than twice the peak graphics performance in some tests.

Google can argue that benchmarks don’t represent everyday phone usage, and there’s some truth to that. A Pixel 11 Pro doesn’t feel twice as slow as a Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra when opening apps or scrolling through social media. For most people, myself included, the Tensor G6 is more than powerful enough for the tasks they perform every day. But that doesn’t mean performance has stopped mattering.

CPU power remains important for demanding applications, gaming, video processing, multitasking, and increasingly sophisticated Android and desktop-class features. It’s also an important fallback for AI workloads that don’t run on Google’s TPU. I certainly don’t want to see Google stop improvements here, but the GPU is the component that has most troubled Tensor for the past few generations.

And it’s not just about benchmark numbers; Google’s choice of graphics determines how well the Pixel handles modern games and other GPU-bound computations, and how much performance headroom remains as those workloads become more demanding, such as running emulators for classic (and increasingly modern) consoles. Google’s choice of graphics silicon partner also has knock-on effects for driver stability and game support. All are areas where Google is now seriously lagging behind similarly priced rival phones.