Edit up top: The identification is done on-device. The Verge article didn't mention this.
> And this year’s Pixel will take advantage of the phone’s always-on microphones to listen for music (not just the phrase “OK Google”) and display what you’re listening to on the screen, even if it’s something on the radio.
This sounds creepy. So now when excessive microphone data is seen to be going out to the cloud, they can just say "Oh, the phone thought there was music playing and was trying to identify it. Simple misunderstanding, nothing nefarious!".
> And this year’s Pixel will take advantage of the phone’s always-on microphones to listen for music (not just the phrase “OK Google”) and display what you’re listening to on the screen, even if it’s something on the radio.
This sounds creepy. So now when excessive microphone data is seen to be going out to the cloud, they can just say "Oh, the phone thought there was music playing and was trying to identify it. Simple misunderstanding, nothing nefarious!".