Google saved a surprise for the finale of its Pixel event: Google Clips, a small AI-infused camera that "thoughtfully" captures images of what's happening in its view.

Google designed the $249 device to allow someone using a Pixel (or Samsung Galaxy S7 or S8 and iPhone 6 and up) to be "part of the moment" rather than holding the phone and being left out as they capture the fleeting, spontaneous events around them. Google calls Clips a "designated photographer."

The device is small enough to easily fit into the palm of a hand, making it easy to carry around, or simply move about a room. In fact, the device is designed to clip onto a pocket, autonomously taking pictures while you're out and about.

Google gave Clips a wide-field lens, allowing it to capture a 130-degree view of what's happening in front of it.

Each product presenter at Google's Pixel event emphasized that its new hardware products are endowed with machine-learning technology, and the same goes for Google Clips. The Google Clips product manager, Juston Payne, described how the device inherently looks for "the good" moments to capture. This AI component also learns which people (which must mean faces) you know, and focuses on snapping pictures of them.

The images captured are short snippets in time that last several seconds, and they're immediately sent to the Google Clips app for either Android or iOS.

Google's product site says that Clips "is coming soon."