{"slug": "perceptual-image-codec-what-matters-in-practical-learned-image-compression", "title": "Perceptual Image Codec: What Matters in Practical Learned Image Compression", "summary": "Researchers at Apple have developed PICO (Perceptual Image Codec), the first learned image compression model optimized for human visual perception and practical on-device deployment. The codec achieves 2.3-3× bitrate savings over traditional standards like AV1 and VVC, while encoding 12MP images in 230ms and decoding in 150ms on an iPhone 17 Pro Max. PICO also delivers 20-40% bitrate savings over competing learned codecs and includes cross-platform robustness guarantees.", "body_md": "[About](index.html#about)\n\nWe introduce PICO (Perceptual Image Codec) — the first learned codec that is both practical, and optimized directly for the human visual system. To derive it, we perform a comprehensive study of modeling choices for practical learned codecs, and search over millions of model configurations to jointly optimize over perceptual quality and on-device runtime.\n\nBased on large-scale subjective user studies, PICO provides **2.3-3× bitrate savings** against AV1, AV2, VVC, ECM and JPEG-AI, and **20-40% bitrate savings** against the best learned codec alternatives. At the same time, on an iPhone 17 Pro Max, it encodes 12MP images as fast as **230ms**, and decodes them in **150ms** — faster than most top ML-based codecs run on a V100 GPU. Different from most learned codecs, PICO furthermore comes with cross-platform robustness guarantees.\n\nComparisons of state-of-the-art traditional and learned codecs across different considerations of practicality.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/perceptual-image-codec-what-matters-in-practical-learned-image-compression", "canonical_source": "https://apple.github.io/ml-pico/", "published_at": "2026-05-24 12:01:24+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-05-25 00:28:42.567751+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["machine-learning", "computer-vision", "neural-networks", "ai-products", "ai-research"], "entities": ["PICO", "AV1", "AV2", "VVC", "ECM", "JPEG-AI", "iPhone 17 Pro Max", "V100 GPU"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/perceptual-image-codec-what-matters-in-practical-learned-image-compression", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/perceptual-image-codec-what-matters-in-practical-learned-image-compression.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/perceptual-image-codec-what-matters-in-practical-learned-image-compression.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/perceptual-image-codec-what-matters-in-practical-learned-image-compression.jsonld"}}