Google isn’t just paying big for AI talent — it’s splurging on celeb talent too

• Google's Pixel event featured a parade of celebrities, including Jimmy Fallon as host.
• The event showcased Google's investment in celebrity appearances to boost product launches.
• The tech giant also announced the hiring of NBA star Stephen Curry as its new performance advisor.

Jimmy Fallon. Alexandra Cooper. Steph Curry. The Jonas Brothers. Google isn't just paying big to score major AI talent — it's also ponying up for celeb talent.

If you tuned into Google's Pixel event on Wednesday, you might have lost track of the number of celebrities flashing across your screen in the first five minutes.

The annual "Made by Google" keynote opened with a star-studded video montage, with celebrities "passing the phone" to each other. It kicked off with "Call Her Daddy" podcaster Alex Cooper and then cut to a number of household names and notable figures, including NBA star Steph Curry, golf pro Bryson DeChambeau, and F1 driver Lando Norris.

Jimmy Fallon also made an appearance in the intro before taking the stage to host the event.

The celebrity cameos didn't end in the intro — they were name-dropped throughout the event. For example, while joining in on a demo showcasing Pixel's texting platform, Fallon's screen showed recent texts with Curry, Cooper, Joe Jonas, and other celebrities.

Some of the celebrities also made it onstage in Brooklyn for live demos, like Cooper, who did a segment showing off Pixel's new photo framing and editing capabilities.

Other buzzy names, like Peloton fitness instructor Cody Rigsby, broke a sweat testing the Pixel Watch 4.

SubwayTakes' Kareem Rahma appeared as well to introduce a pre-recorded video decrying the return of wired earbuds as a fashion statement.

It was a star-studded roster that couldn't have been cheap — and a notable flex by Google, whose search and advertising business continues to boom, helping celebrity partnerships and hiring efforts in the AI talent wars.

Ahead of the showcase, Google announced a new partnership with Curry, who will serve as its "Performance Advisor" across Google Health, Pixel, and Google Cloud to help fine-tune its products.

At the event, Google celebrated the collaboration with a skit showing Curry in a mock interview at the tech giant. The event then closed with Nick Jonas greeting Jimmy Fallon on the stage, and showing a music video that the Jonas Brothers filmed on the Pixel 10 Pro.

Google's events have often included celebrity appearances, but this year appeared to be a notable uptick.

Senior vice president of platforms and devices, Rick Osterloh, hinted at a reason why during an early conversation with Fallon at the start of the 10th Google Pixel event, which he said would be "pretty different."

"There's a lot of reasons to do it like this, but we think this year, we've got a game-changing phone with game-changing technology," Osterloh said.

"Why not have a game-changing launch event," he added.