‘Pixel VIPs’ appears for Google Pixel owners as Play Store update

Google Pixel owners on Sunday evening unexpectedly received an app update for something called “Pixel VIPs.”

According to the Play Store listing, Pixel VIPs — with its heart-shaped icon — helps you “stay connected to the people who matter most and never miss a moment from them.”

Quickly and easily connect with the people who matter most to you.

The Google Play screenshots show a widget that looks a lot like Favorite contacts from Google Contacts. In fact, another shows the app’s Highlights tap. In addition to your usual grid of Favorites, some are badged by the VIPs heart icon. Notably, “VIPs can also bypass Do Not Disturb, so you never miss a moment.”

Tapping from the homescreen widget or inside Contacts takes you to a fullscreen feed. You get their profile image and contact options (calling, messaging, and WhatsApp). A card notes any upcoming birthdays, while there’s also:

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• Last connection that lets you “see your last call and message with them,
• The Location updates section offers a map with “their real-time location, as well as weather and time. 
• You can make one-off Notes like Google Keep with a card-based UI.
• Finally, there’s Things to do together with “activity suggestions.” 

Tell us what you like to do together: Get better activity suggestions by adding your preferences

Pixel VIPs — com.google.android.apps.pixel.relationships — is a background service and not a new app that you launch. After installing version 1.0.766545851, nothing is live yet so there’s presumably a server-side component to all this.

We’re seeing this Pixel VIPs update on Google Pixel devices running Android 15 (May 2025 patch). It does not appear on Android 16 QPR1, with the app listing not opening when you open the link directly.