Sony’s AI Camera Assistant is exactly as bad as it looks

I’m sorry 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 on a Sony camera in years. These weren’t just any photos, though: they were taken with Sony’s new AI Camera Assistant. After a week with the Xperia 1 VIII, I’m here to tell you that the AI assistant is exactly as bad as Sony made it look.

After Sony first showed me the AI Camera Assistant during a press briefing for the Xperia 1 VIII, I said it looked “like an improved version of Google’s Camera Coach.” It’s pretty clear I got that wrong. Camera Coach, found on the latest Pixel phones, is a dedicated camera mode that talks you through framing and exposure. It’s basic, but it works. Sony’s version is a different beast entirely.

Look at that collage above. Same subject, same phone, same lighting. The AI assistant decided to process each shot differently. One is oversaturated to the point of looking radioactive, another is flat and lifeless. The white balance jumps between warm and cold like it can’t make up its mind. This isn’t AI-assisted photography — it’s a roulette wheel with four outcomes, and none of them are good.

I’ve been testing the Xperia 1 VIII for a week now, and the pattern is consistent. Point the camera at a scene, let the AI assistant do its thing, and you get a photo that looks like it was processed by three different people who never spoke to each other. The assistant is supposed to analyze the scene and optimize settings automatically, but it clearly doesn’t understand what makes a good photo. It over-sharpens faces, crushes shadows, and blows out highlights with alarming regularity.

The problem isn’t that Sony tried AI — it’s that they shipped something that wasn’t ready. Google’s Camera Coach is limited in scope, but it does one thing well: it helps you take a decent photo without getting in the way. Sony’s assistant is the opposite. It inserts itself aggressively, making decisions that a human photographer would never make. And unlike a human, you can’t tell it to stop.

You can disable the AI assistant entirely, which I recommend. The Xperia 1 VIII’s manual camera mode is still excellent — Sony knows its hardware. But the fact that the marquee software feature is this bad tells you something about where Sony’s priorities are. They’re chasing AI hype without understanding that photography is about consistency and control, not random algorithmic flourishes.

I’m not saying AI can’t help with photography. It can, and it does in phones like the Pixel and iPhone. But those systems know their limits. They enhance, they don’t replace. Sony’s AI Camera Assistant tries to replace the photographer’s judgment, and it fails every time. If this is the future Sony is building, I’d rather stick with the past.