Sony Xperia 1 VIII: Photo AI Disappoints at Launch

Sony Xperia 1 VIII: AI Photography Disappoints at Launch

Sony, your AI isn't very good at photography.

When Sony announced the Xperia 1 VIII last month, it promoted the phone by sharing some of the worst photos taken with a Sony camera in years. These photos were not ordinary: they were captured using Sony's new AI Photo Assistant. After a week with the Xperia 1 VIII, it appears that the AI assistant is exactly as bad as Sony presented it.

During the first encounter with the AI Photo Assistant at a press briefing for the Xperia 1 VIII, one observer noted that it resembled "an improved version of Google's Photo Coach." Clearly, that impression was mistaken. The Photo Coach, available on the latest Pixel phones, is a dedicated photo mode that guides the user in framing a shot, asking what to focus on and providing specific advice on framing, positioning, lens choice, and using Portrait mode. It was judged disappointing during the review of the Pixel 10A, but it clearly serves as a basic photo coach.

Sony's AI Photo Assistant is different. It is integrated directly into the default mode of the camera app and appears automatically while the user tries to take a photo, although Sony allows it to be disabled completely. While taking a picture, a small box appears in the viewfinder showing what the photo would look like with alternative settings suggested by Sony's AI. A simple tap activates these settings, or the user can swipe down to browse three other alternative options.

The AI Photo Assistant's suggestions appear in the viewfinder, showing real-time image adjustments.

The suggestions appear before the photo is actually taken, so it is not meant for editing photos that have already been taken. Unlike Google's Photo Coach, the Assistant offers no advice on framing or focusing; it simply applies a filter and leaves the rest to the user. It doesn't even say what effects it applies, so there is nothing to learn about why the image looks that way or how to achieve that effect oneself.

The suggestions do not appear consistently. They are not supported at all on the selfie camera, although the reason is unclear. Pointing the camera directly at bright light or a backlit window usually generates no AI suggestions, just as looking at a white wall does. It doesn't often offer options for macro shots, but sometimes it does. If the user tries to take a photo of the palm of a hand, the AI Assistant has plenty of ideas; if the hand is turned to the side or backward, those options disappear. If there is any logic behind this, it isn't obvious.

A 2.9x telephoto shot straight from the phone's camera.

The vast majority of the changes suggested by the AI Assistant are adjustments to exposure, white balance, contrast, and other basic image settings, and generally aggressive adjustments, too. Sometimes it will suggest darkening a photo until it's murky and moody; other times, it will boost the highlights until they are blown out beyond recognition. It likes to suggest a sepia effect or shift the white balance toward yellow to create a warmer final photo. There's usually at least one option with boosted saturation to make the colors pop.

Beyond color and exposure adjustments, the AI Assistant will sometimes activate an artificial bokeh effect, blurring the background like in portrait mode. In its smarter moments, it might brighten the subject of an image while darkening the background to make them stand out. Sony claims it can suggest switching between the three rear lenses of the phone or even help find "the most photogenic angle," although after a week of testing, that has not happened even once.

Similar effects have been seen before on Instagram. Photo filters have been around for 16 years, but they have become more subtle than these. What's particularly strange is that, like most phones, the Xperia also has filters, a range of five, including a film simulation and a more vibrant mode. The main difference is that instead of suggesting predefined visuals, the AI Photo Assistant is supposed to react to the scene, subject, and lighting to dynamically suggest the best modifications for that specific moment, which is what makes it AI. In theory, it's not the worst idea, but in practice, the actual results render it unusable.

The Assistant generated only a handful of photos that would normally be considered worth keeping, let alone worthy of sharing on social media, and just one or two that have a credible claim to being better than the original. It was found to be more useful when lighting is poor, simply because the camera's default settings are more likely to struggle. But even here, getting one or two photos worth taking is rare.

The lighting here was low, so the AI suggestions mainly tried to bring out more detail in the plant.

This isn't the camera's fault. While the Xperia 1 VIII is not considered to have the best smartphone camera right now, it certainly has a good one. With large sensors on the three rear lenses, it has hardware that surpasses those of Apple and Google, and a distinctive processing style, with slightly boosted contrast, that is appreciated overall. It's the best Xperia camera from Sony to date, and competitive with other phones at its high price, the equivalent of $1,850, although the phone isn't actually launching in the U.S. It's this quality elsewhere that makes the AI assistant all the more puzzling.

Sony's decision to make its suggestions before the photo is taken, rather than after, seems to have had unintended effects on performance. Despite using the high-end Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the Xperia 1 VIII operates unevenly at best and tends to overheat. Using the AI Photo Assistant seems to add to the pressure. The camera app often opens slowly and can freeze or crash for several seconds when switching lenses, accessing AI suggestions, or taking a photo. The camera app even crashed once while this was being written. Disabling the photo assistant seems to have alleviated these issues.

Portraits make it clearer that the AI Photo Assistant can apply different processing to different parts of an image.

Perhaps we should be grateful. Sony's attempt to inject AI into its camera doesn't involve editing objects out of photos, expanding images to include details that weren't there, or completely cropping real shots, all of which are included in Apple's new iOS 27 update. Unlike those AI options, and countless others from Google and Samsung, Sony's AI Photo Assistant raises no uncomfortable questions about what a photo is. It just raises the question of whether anyone on Sony's Xperia team knows what makes a photo good.