Google Arts & Culture app matches your pet with museum artwork

Samsung Galaxy S21 Pet Portrait
Samsung Galaxy S21 Pet Portrait (Image credit: Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central)

What you need to know

  • The Google Arts & Culture app adds a new Pet Portrait feature.
  • The new feature matches an image of your pet with museum art.
  • It's similar to the Art Selfie feature that went viral in 2018.

Google recently updated its Arts & Culture feature with a new feature specifically for animal lovers dubbed Pet Portraits, which takes an image of your pet and matches it to artwork.

The latest update, which started rolling out on some of the best Android phones this week, opens directly to the new Pet Portraits mode when selecting the camera icon. When selecting "Take a photo," you can either capture a picture of your pet with the viewfinder or upload one using your phone's gallery.

The feature will analyze the image and compare it and compare it to various museum artworks, listed based on the percentage of likeness. From there, you can either retake, save, or share the image. You can even enter a slideshow to display all the different artworks or select an artwork to view the full image as well as the artist and museum it's featured in.

Source: Derrek Lee / Android Central

If this sounds familiar, it's because Pet Portraits harkens back to Google's Art Selfie feature that went viral for a moment a few years back. That feature is still present and is accessible from the new carousel layout in the Arts & Culture camera that replaces the old list view.

Google ensures to inform the user before use that images are only processed on-device and not sent through to servers. Additionally, images are only seen by you unless you choose to share them.

The feature appears to be part of app version 9.0.27, which may not have rolled out on all devices just yet (some of our devices like the LG Wing have it, while others don't).

Derrek Lee
Managing Editor

Derrek is the managing editor of Android Central, helping to guide the site's editorial content and direction to reach and resonate with readers, old and new, who are just as passionate about tech as we are. He's been obsessed with mobile technology since he was 12, when he discovered the Nokia N90, and his love of flip phones and new form factors continues to this day. As a fitness enthusiast, he has always been curious about the intersection of tech and fitness. When he's not working, he's probably working out.