What’s new in Galaxy AI on the Galaxy S26 Ultra?

Samsung has been building Galaxy AI into its phones since the Galaxy S24 series, but the Galaxy S26 Ultra marks a clear shift in where things are headed. Previous Galaxy AI features were mostly reactive — you had to go looking for them, ask them something, or tap a button to get something done.

On the Galaxy S26 Ultra, Samsung has updated Galaxy AI^[5] so the phone does more on your behalf — surfacing relevant information and acting on context without waiting to be asked.

Here is a breakdown of what has actually changed and what is new this year.

On the Galaxy S25 Ultra, Galaxy AI was mostly about tools you could call on when you needed them — translating text, editing a photo, summarizing a webpage. Useful, but you were always the one initiating it.

The Galaxy S26 Ultra changes that. The phone now learns your habits and surfaces information or suggestions before you think to ask. If you get a text about a meeting, the phone may suggest opening your calendar. If a friend asks for photos, it can pull up the relevant images from your gallery automatically. The AI steps in when it thinks it can help, rather than waiting to be called on.

This is made possible by the faster NPU in the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, which allows more of these tasks to run directly on the device rather than relying on a cloud connection.

Now Nudge^[3] is a new Galaxy AI feature that watches what is on your screen and suggests the next logical step. If you are reading a message about an event, it might suggest checking or adding a reminder in your calendar. If a friend asks you to share photos, it surfaces the relevant images from your gallery so you do not have to go looking.

It is one of the clearest examples of how Galaxy AI has become more proactive on the Galaxy S26 Ultra: context-aware suggestions that appear at the right moment without requiring you to dig through menus.

Now Brief^[2] is a daily summary that surfaces your schedule, upcoming events, and health data from across your apps. It has been on Galaxy phones before, but on the Galaxy S26 Ultra it has been meaningfully updated — it now picks up reservation and schedule details from your messages that you may not have actively noted down.

So if you have a hotel booking confirmation sitting in your email, or a coffee coupon expiring today buried in a notification, Now Brief will surface it for you as part of your morning overview without you needing to dig for it.

The result is a morning overview that includes things you might have otherwise missed, not just what you explicitly added to your calendar.

Photo Assist^[1] is Samsung’s AI photo editing suite, built into the Gallery app. On the Galaxy S26 Ultra with One UI 8.5, it has been completely overhauled from a basic object removal tool into a multi-function editor split into four tools: AI Eraser, Move, Create, and Style.

AI Eraser works the same way as before — tap what you want removed and the phone fills in the background. Samsung has added an edit history this year though, so you can step back through changes if you change your mind. Previously, once something was erased, there was no going back.

The Create function has received the most significant upgrade. Using voice and text prompts, you can describe a change to the scene and the AI adjusts the entire image — not just the sky but the lighting, shadows, and overall feel.

Style lets you transform a photo into a different visual format — a comic, a 3D cartoon, or a clay figurine style, among others. When photos include people, you also get portrait-specific options that apply effects to individual faces.

Creative Studio^[6] is a standalone Galaxy AI tool that generates images from text prompts. Where Photo Assist edits photos you have already taken, Creative Studio creates new visuals from scratch using a range of templates — stickers, wallpapers, greeting cards, profile cards, and invitations.

To use it, open Creative Studio from your app drawer, pick a template type, and describe what you want. You can mix hand-drawn sketches, existing photos, and text prompts together. It can also be accessed directly from Samsung Notes, so you can generate a sticker or card and embed it in a note without switching apps.

Audio Eraser^[4] is a Galaxy AI noise removal tool. It first appeared on the Galaxy S25 series for cleaning up background noise from videos you recorded yourself. On the Galaxy S26 Ultra, it has been significantly expanded.

With One UI 8.5, Audio Eraser now works in real time across third-party apps. While a video is playing on YouTube, Netflix, Instagram, TikTok, or other supported apps, you can swipe down to the Quick Panel and turn Audio Eraser on without leaving the app.

There is a noise reduction slider and a Voice Focus toggle that boosts dialogue. The whole thing happens on the device, in real time, while the video is playing.

It is a practical upgrade. Watching a concert clip where the crowd is drowning out the music, or trying to follow commentary in a noisy sports video, are exactly the kinds of situations where this makes a difference.

Notification Highlights is a new Galaxy AI feature in One UI 8.5 that makes your notification panel easier to manage. It summarizes long chat notifications from supported messaging apps — so instead of seeing ten separate messages from a group chat, you get a condensed version of what was said.

It also learns which notifications you tend to check first and moves the most relevant ones to the top of your panel, adapting to your habits over time.

Some Galaxy AI features from the Galaxy S25 Ultra are still here and have been improved or expanded. Samsung Browser now lets you ask AI questions about the page you are reading, summarize content, and translate text and images directly in the browser.

These tools now also run faster and more reliably thanks to the improved NPU.

^{[1] Photo Assist: Requires network connection and Samsung account login. A visible watermark is overlaid on the saved image to indicate it was generated by Galaxy AI. Accuracy of output not guaranteed.}

^{[2] Now Brief: Samsung account login and network connection required.}

^{[3] Now Nudge: Samsung account login required. Supported apps only. Accuracy of results is not guaranteed.}

^{[4] Audio Eraser: Samsung account login required. Six types of sound can be detected; voices, music, wind, nature, crowd and noise. Results may vary depending on audio source & condition of the video. Network connection required to be used on supported apps.}

^{[5] Galaxy AI: Samsung account login is required for certain AI features.}

^{[6] Creative Studio: Requires network connection and Samsung account login. Accuracy of output not guaranteed.}