Samsung's Galaxy S26 Billed as First 'Agentic AI Telephone'—Right here's What That Means – Decrypt

Samsung CEO TM Roh stepped onto a San Francisco stage Wednesday, launched the Galaxy S26 line of telephones, and stated one thing no telephone maker has stated earlier than.

“Think about a telephone that anticipates your wants earlier than you even notice them,” he stated. “A telephone that learns your habits and adapts in actual time. A telephone that takes actions in your behalf. That is the agentic AI telephone.”

That sounds attention-grabbing, however what does “agentic AI telephone” truly imply—and why ought to anybody care?

Up till now, AI in telephones has been reactive. You ask, it solutions. Agentic AI is completely different. It takes actions in your behalf, throughout apps, with out you doing the tapping or speaking. Consider the distinction between a search engine and a private assistant who truly books the restaurant after you point out that you simply’re hungry.

That shift feels just like the factor each tech firm has been chasing since Siri launched on Apple’s iPhone 4S again in 2011—and sure, Siri was arguably the primary actual try at an agentic telephone expertise. You had been supposed to simply discuss to your telephone and have it do stuff. All these years later, we’re not fairly there but, however Samsung and Google are those making an attempt to construct it.

That is additionally what a wave of AI {hardware} startups spent the final two years making an attempt—and failing—to do. The Humane AI Pin launched in late 2023 for $699 plus a $24 month-to-month subscription, obtained destroyed in evaluations, bought barely 10,000 models, and ended up acquired by HP for $116 million—a fraction of its $1 billion valuation.

The Rabbit R1, a $199 pocket AI companion that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella referred to as essentially the most spectacular tech demo since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, shipped to actual customers and underwhelmed nearly everybody. Each gadgets shared the identical core pitch: your telephone cannot do agentic AI, so that you want a devoted machine. Seems, the telephone simply wanted higher software program.

Samsung now says it’s delivering precisely what these devices promised—not with a brand new piece of {hardware} it’s a must to carry alongside your telephone, however by way of a software program layer baked instantly into a tool you already personal.

The engine behind the Galaxy S26’s agentic options is Google’s Gemini—particularly a brand new functionality the place the AI opens apps in a digital background window and navigates them when you do one thing else totally.

On the Unpacked occasion, Google’s Samir Samat confirmed a demo: The household group chat floods in with pizza requests, Gemini reads the thread, figures out everybody’s order, opens DoorDash, builds the cart, and waits in your handbook faucet earlier than truly confirming. Your telephone stays usable the entire time.

At launch, that works for DoorDash, GrubHub, Uber, Kroger, Walmart, and different chosen apps in a really quick listing. It is rolling out first as a restricted preview within the U.S. and South Korea, with extra apps to come back.

Calling it a beta could be correct—Google is explicitly accumulating suggestions from S26 customers. The vital guardrail: Gemini by no means hits “verify” or “pay” with out your remaining faucet. You can even watch it work in actual time if you happen to do not belief it to function unsupervised, which, honest.

Alongside Gemini, Samsung is bringing in Perplexity as a second system-level agent. Perplexity, which payments itself as an “reply engine” moderately than a chatbot, shall be accessible through a wake phrase or a side-button shortcut on the S26.

Inside Samsung’s net browser, Perplexity’s Ask AI function can sweep throughout all of your open tabs and up to date searching historical past concurrently to reply a analysis query with out you leaping between sources. Samsung says practically 80% of customers already depend on greater than two AI brokers each day—which is the sensible justification for providing each as a substitute of selecting one.

There’s additionally a brand new Bixby, the AI assistant that Samsung refuses to let die. It has been overhauled to transcend easy command executions and function primarily based on context understanding. Bixby now understands pure language effectively sufficient that you could say “My eyes damage after trying on the display screen,” and it will open the brightness settings routinely. It additionally pulls reside data instantly into your dialog with out kicking you out to a different app. Whether or not folks will truly use Bixby this time is a separate dialog.

Past the agentic stuff, the AI function listing for the S26 is lengthy. “Now Temporary” is a customized each day digest—it proactively surfaces your restaurant reservations pulled from notification historical past, schedule conflicts, and power ranges, even for occasions you by no means manually added to a calendar. “Name Screening” identifies unknown callers and summarizes their intent earlier than you choose up. A brand new “Nudge” function detects context in a chat—if somebody asks if you happen to’re free this weekend, it brings your calendar to you contained in the message thread as a substitute of constructing you turn apps.

“Picture Help” permits you to describe one thing lacking from a shot and Galaxy AI provides it in. The entrance digital camera additionally now makes use of an AI picture sign processor for sharper element on selfies, whereas night time video will get cleaner grain discount. The S26 Extremely shoots 8K video utilizing the brand new APV codec, which helps near-lossless high quality so footage survives a number of rounds of enhancing. The entire digital camera pipeline leans closely on AI on the {hardware} stage.

On competitors: Apple has been promising a wiser Siri since not less than 2024 and nonetheless hasn’t delivered the options it introduced. Google’s personal Pixel 10 will get the identical Gemini agentic options—however Samsung ships first, in far bigger volumes, to much more international locations. No different telephone maker is at the moment utilizing the phrase “agentic” to explain its product. Samsung grabbed the label. Whether or not the tech big earns it long-term relies on how briskly the beta expands.

However the precise standout from Wednesday wasn’t the AI. It was a bit of show {hardware} that privacy-conscious folks will recognize: a built-in privateness show that allows you to management whether or not onlookers can truly see what you are doing in your telephone.

It really works like this: a “black matrix” layer bodily narrows the trail of sunshine from every pixel so solely the individual holding the telephone can see what’s on display screen. These watching at an angle get nothing however pitch black, as if the show is off. Somebody subsequent to you on the subway sees nothing.

In contrast to the plastic privateness movies which have existed for years and make your display screen completely darker and tougher to share, this one toggles on and off. You’ll be able to apply it solely to particular apps—banking stays non-public, for instance, however your video games do not—or simply to the notification bar, so an individual subsequent to you’ll be able to see most of your display screen however not your incoming messages.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Extremely, beginning at $1,299, is the one telephone on the planet with this function constructed into the show {hardware}. Pre-orders open in the present day; transport begins March 11. The usual Galaxy S26 begins at $899, whereas the bigger Galaxy S26 Plus will promote for $1,099.