Samsung reveals Galaxy S26 AI camera suite but faces backlash for AI-generated marketing

Looks like we can expect more AI from the Galaxy S26 camera.

Samsung is teasing "a new Galaxy camera experience" coming next week, saying that "the latest Galaxy AI experiences will bring advanced creative tools to one place." A handful of teaser videos -- along with those AI-generated ads -- give me the impression that we're going to see more AI tools crammed into the camera system. But maybe calling it "the brightest Galaxy camera system to date" confirms the rumors of brighter apertures, which could do a lot more for image quality than some AI editing tools.

Samsung teases mobile AI photography tools ahead of Unpacked

Anyone who's been paying even a little bit of attention to tech news lately could have made a reasonable guess that AI will be a big topic at Samsung's Unpacked next week. Ahead of the event, Samsung teased some of what's to come for AI in terms of the Galaxy S26 smartphone lineup's photography tools. The S26 phones will feature a new camera system using Galaxy AI that combines capturing, editing and sharing of photos and videos. "Users will be able to turn a photo from day to night in seconds, restore missing parts of objects in images, capture detailed photos in low light, and seamlessly merge multiple photos into a single, cohesive result," a company rep said. The video clips Samsung shared demonstrated the before and after results of using its AI tools, which will all be housed in a single app rather than needing to switch between multiple image editing programs. Updated cameras are just part of what will be on the schedule for Samsung's big mobile showcase. The expected Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26+ and Galaxy S26 Ultra will likely have a lot of AI-centric features.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra's low-light teaser relies on AI, not real footage

Rajesh started following the latest happenings in the world of Android around the release of the Nexus One and Samsung Galaxy S. After flashing custom ROMs and kernels on his beloved Galaxy S, he started writing about Android for a living. He uses the latest Samsung or Pixel flagship as his daily driver. And yes, he carries an iPhone as a secondary device. Rajesh has been writing for Android Police since 2021, covering news, how-tos, and features. Based in India, he has previously written for Neowin, AndroidBeat, Times of India, iPhoneHacks, MySmartPrice, and MakeUseOf. When not working, you will find him mindlessly scrolling through X, playing with new AI models, or going on long road trips. You can reach out to him on Twitter or drop a mail at [email protected]. With the Galaxy S26's launch fast approaching, Samsung has ramped up its marketing efforts surrounding it. Since last week, the company has published several teasers, highlighting the various aspects of the device. It's continuing that trend with a new short video putting the spotlight on Galaxy S26 Ultra's low-light video capabilities, except it's using AI to do so. Samsung wants to build hype around the Galaxy S26's next-gen low-light "Nightography" capabilities. Ideally, you'd expect the company to do this by sharing low-light images or video samples from the phone. It has done something similar with its teaser titled "Brighten your after hours." It suggests that the Galaxy S26 will deliver impressive video quality even in challenging lighting conditions, showing the before and after with low-light video mode enabled. The catch? The entire clip is AI-generated. The company only partially acknowledges this towards the end of the teaser by saying, "This content was generated with the assistance of AI tools." If anything, it already paints the Galaxy S26's camera in a poor light. Samsung should have shot this teaser from the Galaxy S26 to highlight its low-light prowess -- assuming the camera can genuinely deliver that level of quality. Using AI-generated content serves no purpose here and shows the company's lack of faith in the capabilities of its own products. A wider aperture alone may not bring substantial improvements The Galaxy S26 Ultra is rumored to get a wider f/1/.5 aperture vs. the S25 Ultra's f/1.7. This should certainly help improve low-light images and videos, as more light will hit the sensor. But the difference might not be that big in daily life, especially since Samsung will supposedly stick to the same 200MP primary sensor as its last few Ultra flagships. This is also probably why the company is using AI-generated content to hype the camera capabilities of its 2026 flagship. AP Recommends: Subscribe and never miss what matters Tech insights about everything mobile directly from the Android Police team. Subscribe By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime. Instead of the cameras, Samsung should focus on marketing the Galaxy S26 Ultra's Privacy display feature, since it genuinely seems useful and could help the device stand out from the competition. With the Galaxy S26 launch still more than a week away, expect Samsung to release additional short videos teasing the phone's various features. Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Location San Francisco; Virtual Description Announcements of new Samsung Galaxy products, including smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches. Website https://www.samsung.com/us/smartphones/the-next-galaxy/reserve/ Expand Collapse

Coming Soon: A Seamless Galaxy Camera Experience for Easy Content Creation

Turning a photo from day to night in seconds. Restoring missing parts of objects in images, like a bite taken out of a cake. Seamlessly merging multiple photos into one cohesive image. These creative capabilities once required professional skills or hours of editing. Now they're possible in minutes, directly from your Galaxy phone, simply by asking in your own words. That's the next evolution of the Galaxy camera: an end-to-end experience with the brightest Galaxy camera system ever as the foundation. Mobile cameras are moving beyond capture, as the latest Galaxy AI unifies advanced creative capabilities for capturing, editing and sharing in one intuitive platform. The result is a seamless experience and a more fluid creative process -- eliminating the need to switch between apps or navigate complex tools, so creativity feels faster, simpler and more natural. At the core of this evolution is the belief that creativity should not be limited by technical skill or experience. From shooting to editing, the Galaxy camera has quietly redefined what's possible. Now anyone can create cinematic videos, track stars across the night sky or capture richly detailed photos, even in low light. And with natural, multimodal input, editing becomes as simple as describing what you have in mind in just a few words. Stay tuned for the easiest and most user-friendly Galaxy camera experience yet, unveiling next week at Galaxy Unpacked February 2026.

Samsung teases AI image editor for upcoming Galaxy S26 phones

Samsung is adding some more AI image editing tools to its next batch of Galaxy smartphones. A series of short video teasers released today shows how users will be able to quickly and creatively edit photos with AI. The Korean tech giant announced in a quick press blast on Tuesday that "the latest Galaxy smartphone" will have access to a new, unified suite of AI-powered editing tools. While Samsung didn't specifically mention S26 in its announcement, we think it's a safe bet. The company is widely expected to announce three new Galaxy S26 phones at a Galaxy Unpacked event next week, so this will surely be a flagship feature for the new devices. It makes sense, as Galaxy phones utilize Google Gemini, which is widely regarded as the best generative AI photo editor thanks to Nano Banana. Based on the teasers, the ability to capture and edit photos and videos will seemingly be combined into one app experience, so users no longer have to switch between multiple apps to do all of their editing. Examples given included turning daytime photos into nighttime shots and merging multiple photos into one. Perhaps most importantly, Samsung said it will expand upon this feature at Galaxy Unpacked. Otherwise, the press release was pretty short and somewhat vague, so we'll have to wait until then to hear more.

Samsung Teases a New Unified, AI-Powered Galaxy Camera Experience

Samsung has teased a new Galaxy smartphone camera experience ahead of its next Galaxy Unpacked event next week. The new experiences look poised to heavily leverage the Galaxy AI technology, which has become an increasingly important part of the Samsung Galaxy series in recent years, including in last year's Samsung Galaxy S25 series. Last week, Samsung announced its next Galaxy Unpacked event, and the initial teasers and info appear to almost exclusively focus on Galaxy AI. AI-based tools were already a significant part of the Samsung Galaxy S25-series experience, including on the Galaxy S25 Ultra handheld PetaPixel reviewed. On that device, users can take advantage of different AI tools to turn doodles into images, remove distractions from photos, add all-new objects to photos, and much more. For photographers, there are some handy features, like a "Best Face" that combines multiple group or portrait shots to make everyone look their best -- no more blinks ruining shots. There is also an AI-assisted Generative Edit tool, which was significantly improved in last year's model. For this year's Galaxy devices, Samsung promises that users will be able to access all of Galaxy AI's photo and image features in a fully unified photo and video experience -- no more jumping between different apps. Users will be able to turn a photo from day to night in seconds, restore missing parts of objects in images, capture better low-light photos, seamlessly merge multiple shots into an AI-powered panorama, and more. "Tasks that once required professional skills and hours of editing will now be completed in minutes directly from the latest Galaxy smartphone," Samsung says. This new info aligns with what Samsung teased last week, when it said that its upcoming Unpacked event will feature the company's newest Galaxy innovations and start "a new phase in the era of AI as intelligence becomes truly personal and adaptive." As for what might be changing with Galaxy's actual camera hardware, Samsung is keeping its cards very close to the vest. However, the company says that the new Galaxy camera experience, which will be fully unveiled next week, is "built on the brightest Galaxy camera system to date." Ideally, there will be meaningful hardware improvements to go along with the upgraded AI-based software enhancements. While there are plenty of compelling ways for AI to enhance the mobile photo and video experience, there is no substitute for better image sensors and lenses. One of the biggest knocks PetaPixel made against the Galaxy S25 Ultra last year was that most of the improvements felt minor, especially for photographers. Hopefully Samsung's newest devices will mix things up beyond new Galaxy AI features and more AI tools inside the camera app. Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event starts on February 25 at 1 PM EST (10 AM PST). PetaPixel will have all the news as soon as it's available.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 could have the most AI camera ever

The camera system update should more seamlessly integrate all those Galaxy AI imaging tools What was once separate could become one, and what was once confusion could finally offer clarity: that's the potential promise of Samsung's next big camera system for its upcoming, anticipated lineup of Galaxy S26 smartphones. After announcing last week that it will hold its big Winter Unpacked event in New York on February 25, where it is expected to reveal new Galaxy S26 smartphones (along, posisbly with Galaxy Buds and a Galaxy Watch update), Samsung is now teasing out some details about the big launch. In a brief release backed up by a handful of revealing video demos, Samsung said it plans to "unveil a new Galaxy camera experience designed to unify photo & video capturing, editing, and sharing into one intuitive system." Among the promised features are: This sounds like a mix of old and new features. We could already sketch on images to create new elements, like the spaceship over the cow show in this GIF. However, the quick replacement of a bite out of a cupcake to make it whole again is a leveling up of AI capabilities. What's more interesting here is the potential to have Galaxy AI's image editing and enhancement tools more deeply integrated with the base camera system. Right now, for instance, the AI editing features live under a Galaxy AI button, and even there, the sketch to image and Generative Edit are separate elements in the tool. Could all these disparate pieces be fused into one cohesive camera system? Could they appear as tools during image capture? Here's how Samsung describes it: "The latest Galaxy AI experiences will bring advanced creative tools to one place, eliminating the need to switch between apps and navigate complex editing software." Like its partner Google, Samsung has leaned into generative image manipulation in a way, say, that Apple and its iPhone have not. There's the "Clean Up" tool in iOS. 26's Photos app, but that element removal tool is about as far as Apple is currently willing to go in the AI space. For years, we've been able to sketch a rudimentary dog on any Galaxy image and let Galaxy AI generate a lifelike dog that looks like it was always part of the photo. The integration of these powerful AI tools is not unexpected, but it does signal that Samsung is willing to let the AI experience become more seamless until they're no longer seen as these separate and maybe esoteric things: it's all just part of the Galaxy S26 phone's capabilities. I'm curious if this new camera system also means the tighter integration of all those tools currently hidden under the Galaxy Camera app's "More" menu. This includes the "Pro" tools, "Proi Video," "Single Take," "Panorama," and more. In a similar vein, I wonder how deeply Samsung plans to integrate video shooting and editing. While it mentions video, Samsung offered no details on what changes we can expect in the handling of moving images. Whatever these changes do entail, one thing is clear: the Samsung Galaxy S26 line will combine its hardware camera updates (no one is expecting major lens changes) with a brand new camera platform, one that could be qual parts optical and AI. Samsung Galaxy Unpacked is sure to be a fascinating unveil. Stick with TechRadar, which will be on the ground in San Francisco on February 25 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET / 6 PM BST (5 AM AEDT on the 26th).

Next Galaxy Camera System Will be 'Brightest to Date'

We may earn a commission when you click links to retailers and purchase goods. More info. We are coming up on Samsung's next Unpacked event, which is where the company will unveil the Galaxy S26 series. Leading up to that, the company is now teasing the camera system buyers can look forward to. The updated system is designed to combine photo and video capture along with editing and sharing. Users should be able to snap their shots, edit them using powerful AI tools, and then ship them off to social media or to friends all within the same experience. AI Goodies: For AI tools, Samsung highlights the ability to turn daytime photos into nighttime photos in seconds, restoring missing parts of objects in images, shooting in very low light, merging multiple images into a single shot, and more. "Tasks that once required professional skills and hours of editing will now be completed in minutes directly from the latest Galaxy smartphone," the company explained. Samsung is labeling this the "brightest Galaxy camera system to date," for the Galaxy S26 series.

Samsung's Bold Move: Why the Galaxy S26 is the Future of Smartphones

Samsung is preparing to unveil its highly anticipated Galaxy S26 series on February 25, 2026. This flagship smartphone is designed to highlight the fantastic potential of artificial intelligence (AI), making it a core component of the user experience. Through an ambitious global marketing campaign featuring immersive 3D billboards in major cities such as London, Los Angeles, Seoul, Tokyo, and Ho Chi Minh City, Samsung is showcasing the Galaxy S26's capabilities in creativity, productivity, and low-light photography. This launch reflects a significant strategic shift, where AI is no longer a supporting feature but a central driver of innovation in the smartphone industry. The video below from Talks Daily Tech gives us more details about the Galaxy S26 Ultra. Samsung's global marketing campaign for the Galaxy S26 uses state-of-the-art 3D billboards to captivate audiences and highlight the device's AI-driven features. These billboards are designed to demonstrate how AI can enhance everyday tasks, making them more intuitive and seamless. By focusing on dynamic and visually engaging content, Samsung emphasizes the Galaxy S26's ability to redefine creativity and productivity. This approach marks a departure from traditional marketing strategies that often prioritize hardware specifications, instead placing a spotlight on the software advancements that set the Galaxy S26 apart. The campaign's choice of high-traffic urban locations ensures maximum visibility, while the use of innovative visuals reinforces the Galaxy S26's position as a forward-thinking device. By aligning its marketing with the smartphone's AI-driven capabilities, Samsung creates a cohesive narrative that resonates with both tech enthusiasts and everyday users. The Galaxy S26 introduces a suite of AI-powered tools designed to act as a creative partner, allowing users to achieve professional-grade results with ease. Key features include natural object movement, instant background reshaping, and seamless scene transformations, all of which are powered by advanced AI algorithms. These tools allow you to tackle complex creative tasks, such as photo editing or visual design, with minimal effort. Running on the latest One UI 8.5, the Galaxy S26 offers an intuitive interface that streamlines workflows and enhances usability. Whether you're a professional content creator or a casual user, the device's AI capabilities make it possible to produce high-quality results without requiring extensive technical expertise. By integrating these features directly into the smartphone, Samsung positions the Galaxy S26 as a tool that enables users to unlock their creative potential. Low-light photography has been a persistent challenge for smartphones, but the Galaxy S26 addresses this with its enhanced Nightgraphy technology. Using AI-driven computational photography, the device delivers sharper details, reduced noise, and optimized scenes even in the most challenging lighting conditions. These advancements allow you to capture stunning photos and videos without relying on significant hardware upgrades, showcasing the power of software innovation. The Galaxy S26's AI capabilities extend beyond simple image processing. Features such as scene optimization and intelligent noise reduction ensure that every shot is tailored to the environment, producing results that rival those of professional cameras. This focus on software-driven photography underscores Samsung's commitment to redefining what smartphones can achieve, particularly in areas where hardware alone has traditionally fallen short. The Galaxy S26 represents a pivotal moment in Samsung's approach to smartphone design, with a clear emphasis on software capabilities over traditional hardware upgrades. By integrating AI into nearly every aspect of the device, Samsung delivers improvements in productivity, creativity, and user experience that were previously unattainable. From scene optimization in photography to streamlined workflows in creative tasks, the Galaxy S26 demonstrates how software innovation can redefine the boundaries of smartphone functionality. This shift reflects a broader trend within the industry, where software advancements are increasingly seen as the key to differentiation in a competitive market. By prioritizing AI integration, Samsung not only enhances the Galaxy S26's capabilities but also sets a new standard for what users can expect from a flagship smartphone. The official debut of the Galaxy S26 during Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event on February 25, 2026, marks a significant milestone for the company's flagship series. By embedding AI as a foundational element, the Galaxy S26 redefines the smartphone experience, offering features that go beyond incremental upgrades. The global marketing campaign, with its focus on creativity, productivity, and low-light photography, teases a device that is designed to meet the evolving needs of modern users. As the launch date approaches, anticipation continues to build for a smartphone that promises to reimagine how technology integrates into daily life. With the Galaxy S26, Samsung not only reinforces its position as a leader in the smartphone market but also sets a bold precedent for the future of mobile innovation. Here are additional guides from our expansive article library that you may find useful on the Samsung Galaxy S26. Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.