Lately, it’s not unusual for telephones to share two massive promoting factors: a partnership with a trusted pictures model and flashy AI options. The Xiaomi 17T Professional, launched this week in Vienna, isn’t any totally different, boasting Leica-tuned cameras and recent new AI expertise from Google’s text-to-video device, Gemini Omni.
After all, Leica is a storied model with 157 years of historical past — so how does Omni’s presence on the Xiaomi 17T Professional sit with this pictures heritage?
At a post-launch roundtable attended by TechRadar, the German digicam large — which has been collaborating with Xiaomi since 2022 — shared its tackle the utility of generative AI, and its remarks have been decidedly diplomatic.
For context, on the launch itself, Google made a cameo look to reintroduce Gemini Omni, which debuted at Google I/O 2026 earlier this month and is accessible on appropriate Android telephones, together with the Xiaomi 17T collection.
On stage in Vienna, Erin Pettigrew, Director of Product Expertise at Gemini, generated a postcard-style video of herself having fun with the town’s cafe tradition “to ship again to [her] family and friends,” presumably as a result of doing so was simpler than filming an precise video of herself having fun with Vienna’s cafe tradition.
Here is what Leica needed to say about generative AI instruments like Omni:
“The philosophy of Leica is at all times to create genuine photographs; actual photographs that actually replicate actuality,” stated Marius Eschweiler, VP of Enterprise Unit Cellular at Leica. “I feel there’s a little distinction between clients who’re selecting [to use] a smartphone for taking photographs [and traditional photographers], and I feel we’re providing smartphone customers Leica expertise with totally different Leica modes which can be targeted on authenticity.
“However there are additionally use circumstances [for generative AI], like this cute video postcard Erin [Pettigrew] introduced. That is only a totally different use case. Whether or not you need to take a critical picture or create one thing with generative AI — I feel that’s a special use case. Most probably, you will not see it on a Leica M digicam, however I feel on a Xiaomi 17T collection, it makes excellent sense.”
Leica’s Head of Improvement and Engineering for Cellular, Pablo Acevedo Noda, was additionally eager to level out that Leica provides a Content material Credentials characteristic, which embeds a digital signature into pictures taken with Leica {hardware} — together with the best Xiaomi phones — to verify their authenticity.
“Adding Content Credentials to photos taken with the phone prevents somebody from tampering with the photo afterwards — [or at least] you’ll know that it has been tampered with,” Noda explained.
“Sometimes, it will be obvious — if you add something special with Nano Banana, for example — but sometimes, it will not be obvious. The metadata will have that information there. That’s the important part.”
In a similar vein, Google announced a major upgrade for its Verify AI tool at I/O 2026 to show that it too is concerned about preserving authenticity and combating misinformation (though that feels a little bit like an arms dealer preaching to the masses about gun safety).
The sticky relationship between photography and generative AI has been a topic of conversation for several years now. I’ve asked the likes of Samsung, Qualcomm, and Honor for their thoughts on the subject in the past, and while some of those companies have been looser with their definition of ‘photography’ than others (in the early days of Galaxy AI, Samsung told me “there’s no such thing as a real picture”), most seem to agree that there is a place for generative AI tools in photography, as long as they’re presented to users as a choice.
Of course, there’s a big difference between AI-enhanced photo tweaks and a full-blown text-to-image machine like Gemini Omni, but it’s clear that tech companies are aware of (and in many cases, reacting to) consumer concerns surrounding AI.
My hunch is that Leica — a 157-year-old camera maker — has its own private thoughts about tools like Gemini Omni, but diplomacy prevails when multiple companies are involved in producing a single smartphone such as the Xiaomi 17T Pro. At least we know that Leica’s traditional M cameras are safe from generative AI for now…
For more on Xiaomi’s latest handsets, check out our full Xiaomi 17T Pro review and our dedicated feature on the Xiaomi 17T Pro’s excellent 5x telephoto camera.
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