New Phone Tools Let AI Redraw the Edges of Your Photos

Smartphone makers are rolling out AI editing tools that do more than crop a photo — they generate entirely new image content that was never captured by the camera in the first place.

Apple’s iOS 27 introduces two such tools to its Photos app, called Extend and Reframe. Extend lets a user expand a photo beyond its original borders, with Apple Intelligence generating additional background where none existed. Reframe goes a step further, allowing a user to shift the point of capture after the fact — moving, zooming, rotating or adjusting perspective — while the system fills in whatever new background that composition requires.

Samsung and Google offer comparable tools on their own devices. Samsung’s Galaxy AI Photo Assist includes a Move feature that repositions, rotates or resizes part of an image and then uses generative AI to fill in the resulting gaps. Google Photos offers a tool called Auto frame, which Google says can recompose a photo that was shot too tight or poorly framed, generating new background as needed.

What the tools require

Apple’s Extend and Reframe features require Apple Intelligence and iOS 27 or later. Owners of older iPhones that can run iOS 27 but lack Apple Intelligence support will not get access to these tools. Availability can also depend on language, region, and Apple says some Apple Intelligence features carry usage limits.

Samsung’s menus can vary by Galaxy model and software version. Google rolls out Photos features gradually, so users who don’t see Auto frame are advised to update the app and check again, with availability varying by device, account and region.

The catch: these tools invent image content

Unlike ordinary cropping, which only removes part of an image, these generative tools create image content that the camera never recorded. That raises a practical concern: AI-generated sections can contain errors, particularly around faces, hands, text or complex backgrounds.

Users are advised to zoom in before saving an edited photo and check faces, hands, hair, jewelry and clothing for unexpected alterations. Generative AI tools can also struggle to render legible letters and numbers, so street signs, shirts and storefronts in an edited photo are worth a close look.

Smaller, more modest edits tend to hold up better than dramatic ones — adding a little extra space around the edges of an image rather than expanding the whole frame. Starting with the clearest original photo available also produces better results, since these tools cannot fully rescue a badly blurred or exposed shot.

Several of the apps allow users to save an edited version as a separate copy, preserving the untouched original photo in case the AI-generated result doesn’t hold up to later scrutiny.