I didn't expect the Pixel 9's Studio app to help this much with my new home

When the Pixel 9 series launched with a bunch of new Google and Gemini AI features, there were a few I quickly dismissed as “cool for a few days, not useful for later.” One of those was the built-in image generator, and even though I had a bit of fun with this Pixel Studio making steampunk cat bands and Android-Apple memes, I just figured out the feature’s utility wouldn’t stretch beyond that. That is until my husband and I started thinking about different interior design ideas and concepts for our new home and had trouble visualizing them.

As we were moving from a fully furnished rental to an empty home, we had to buy everything and make up our minds very quickly about it all. For someone as undecided as me, this was an exercise in utter frustration. Would an oak TV table, navy couch, white walls, grey floor tiles, and touches of black metal fit together with a pre-installed all-white kitchen? Would it be too cool of a color scheme or would the oak balance it out and add a touch of warmth? Can we keep this base configuration and switch around small elements of decor every year or two to add some green on top of the navy? What about yellow? Or red? Or would that be too heavy and too complicated as a color scheme?

I started doing Google image searches and trolling Pinterest, looking for similar ideas, but I found it impossible to get the exact mix of colors and elements we were researching. Some photos would have hardwood floors, some would have wallpaper, others would go for a more rustic look, and so on. Nothing hit the mark for us.

That’s when it clicked for me. Pixel Studio! I have an image-generating tool right in my hands at all times that can help us get a general idea of the design and color schemes we’re going for. So we can know at a glance if things fit together or if we need to change course before it’s too late. Better yet, it works very quickly on my phone and doesn’t require an internet connection. So, if I’m in the fourth-level basement of some furniture shop, I can still use it.

So, I opened Pixel Studio and started typing. A few seconds later, I had my living room idea right in front of me, and it was way closer to what I had imagined than anything I could find on Pinterest or through a Google image search. I adjusted some parameters to make sure everything was up to par and generated another image. That one was even more accurate!

Then, we started tweaking the prompt to see how green, yellow, red, and orange would fit in with that kind of space. And when we bought an oak dining table with light grey chairs, I added those to the Pixel Studio prompt, too, to see how well they integrated with the rest of the elements.

Of course, this whole exercise didn’t give me my home layout and my furniture, but it gave my husband and me a quick, similar’ish visual we could easily make an informed decision from. For example, I know green works very well with our setup, yellow too, orange maybe a little less, and bright red is a skip. It just looks too busy to our eyes. 10 seconds to write a prompt, 10 seconds to create a few renders, and there we have it: the fastest way to know if we’re going in the right direction or if we’ll end up hating our choices.

And look, I’m under no impression that this is anything like having an interior designer measure every inch and adapt every piece of furniture to our place. It’s nowhere close to a proper 3D render, either. We actually hired a real, human interior designer to do just that for some of the more intricate elements in our home. But for quick assessments and to figure out what we like and what we don’t, Pixel Studio has been invaluable. When you’re paying thousands of dollars on furniture, you want someone — or something — to give you that extra assurance that you’re not making regretful decisions.

As we progressed with our purchases, we started turning to Pixel Studio a bit more frequently. We’re still in the “pending” status for our offices and bedroom, but every time we have an idea, I throw it in Pixel Studio to see if it works.

And last Sunday, when we had to rush to buy some bathroom tiles last-minute for an ongoing bathroom/laundry room renovation, I turned to Pixel Studio again to see how well white wall tiles would work with a white suspended toilet and sink, grey floor tiles, and a dark greige shower area. Turns out they do, so we bought the white tiles. A decision that would’ve taken me hours to make was done in a few minutes just because I had the visual proof that this was the right tile choice for me.

Now, I find it so easy to test different color combinations, elements, and configurations with Pixel Studio. And yes, I realize there are many image generators out there, but this one is free, comes built into my Pixel 9 Pro, runs locally, and its AI engine — Imagen 3 — stood out as an excellent option when my colleague Calvin tested out the 5 best image generators. So why look further?