The Galaxy S26 proves Google was right all along

I was out in San Francisco this week to get some hands-on time with the brand-new Samsung Galaxy S26 lineup. Let me be right up front: the very first thing I noticed — and I’m certain many of you did as well — is that these phones haven’t changed much at all from last year’s iterations. Yet, despite this glaring lack of hardware innovation, two models in this new lineup have seen their prices increase by a whopping $100 each.

Initially, my game plan was to write an article and make a video lambasting Samsung for, once again, being incredibly lazy with its yearly upgrades. I was fully prepared to argue (again) that last year’s devices are probably the much better buy (again). But then, Samsung started showing off the brand-new software features baked into the Galaxy S26 series.

That is when I realized something quite significant. It seems abundantly clear that Samsung has been looking very closely at what Google has been doing with its Pixel lineup and essentially said, “Hey, we should do that too.”

A masterclass in software “borrowing”

Obviously, Samsung has introduced software tricks plenty of times in the past. Every single time the company launches a new smartphone, it announces a bunch of brand-new features meant to entice people to upgrade. But this year felt entirely different for two specific reasons.

First, many of the software features Samsung announced are lifted straight from the Pixel. Second, Samsung is now committed to branding the Galaxy S26 series as “AI phones,” rather than just smartphones. This marketing pivot ties directly into what Google has been doing with Pixels for a decade.

Let me break down some of the most blatant examples of Samsung lifting from Google’s playbook, starting with Now Nudge. This is quite literally just Google’s Magic Cue wearing a different name tag. As a quick refresher, Magic Cue launched with the Pixel 10 series last year. The whole concept is that the AI preemptively figures out what you are going to want to do and offers you a convenient shortcut to do it.

During the Samsung event, I saw an example of Now Nudge where a person asked a friend if they were available for a dinner date. The phone automatically provided suggestions based on the context of the conversation and the contents of the user’s calendar. Another demo showed a friend asking about photos from a trip to Australia, and the phone automatically surfaced a link to those specific photos, ready to be sent. These were really cool demos, but I had seen these exact same examples last year at the Pixel 10 launch.

Screenshots and Call Screening: More familiar faces

Another major feature Samsung is taking directly from the Pixel is a new screenshots tool tucked inside Samsung’s first-party Gallery app. This is the exact same idea as the Pixel Screenshots app, which initially launched with the Pixel 9 series back in 2024.

On a Pixel device, you have a dedicated app that organizes your screenshots and keeps them completely separated from your Google Photos camera roll. The AI scans these screenshots, determines their context, and makes everything searchable. For instance, if I took a screenshot of some headphones I wanted to buy, I could simply search the app for the term “headphones,” and the AI would pull that image up without me ever having to tag it manually.

The new screenshots service inside the Gallery app on galaxy S26 phones operates on this same principle. However, there is a weird caveat: Samsung is keeping these screenshots inside the main Gallery app. I personally think having screenshots in one app and photos in a completely different app makes a lot more sense. Even on Pixels, you can opt to have your screenshots appear in Google Photos if you prefer them in both places. Samsung’s implementation doesn’t give you the option to easily separate them, which is unfortunate.

There are even more examples of Samsung stealing from the Pixel. The Galaxy S26 series now has a feature called Call Screening. As you probably guessed, this is the exact same concept as Pixel’s iconic Call Screen feature. Galaxy AI will now answer phone calls from unknown numbers, ask the caller who they are and why they are calling, and then hand the call off to you if it determines the person is actually worth your time. Pixel phones have had this feature for a very long time, and iPhones eventually got it late last year with the rollout of iOS 26.

Finally, there is Photo Assist on the Galaxy S26 series. This new feature allows you to use text prompts to edit your images. You can do basic things like change the lighting, or go completely all out and generate entirely new aspects of the photo. Samsung showed a demo of turning a sliced cake back into a whole cake. This feature originally debuted on the Pixel 10 series last year under the name Help Me Edit, where you just input a text prompt and Gemini edits the photo for you. It’s crystal clear what inspired Samsung to create Photo Assist.

The elephant in the room: ‘AI Phones’

Now, we need to have a frank discussion about the whole “AI phone” thing. If you watched the Galaxy S26 launch event, you undoubtedly heard Samsung make this reference numerous times. Honestly? It’s pretty cringe.

However, I totally get what Samsung is trying to accomplish here. Apple Intelligence was supposed to revolutionize the iPhone, but that never really materialized, and Apple is still struggling to figure out its place in the AI revolution. It makes perfect sense that Samsung would push this AI phone nonsense to hammer home the point that Galaxy phones actually possess the AI smarts that Apple promised — but failed to deliver. It’s a classic iPhone vs. Galaxy marketing battle, and I completely understand the strategy.

But even with that context, Pixels have functionally been AI phones for years. Way back in 2016, Google CEO Sundar Pichai declared that Google would be an “AI-first” company. At the launch of the Pixel 10, Google’s hardware lead Rick Osterloh echoed this, stating that AI has been at the forefront of Google’s strategy since the very first Pixel launched nearly a decade ago.

So why didn’t Google just call them AI phones all along? Because that’s super lame. Google never got corny with it by claiming Pixels aren’t smartphones. It’s unfortunate that Samsung has decided to run down that specific marketing path.

A few genuinely new tricks

Before I wrap this up, I do want to call out that Samsung is bringing some genuinely new software features to the table that we haven’t seen on Pixels yet.

One great example is the Finder feature, which used to be a Good Lock feature but is now baked right into the home screen. This is a unified, one-stop search bar that combs through in-app content, settings, connected devices, and more to fetch the exact answers you need. For instance, you could ask it “What’s new in One UI?” or tell it to “Make my screen easier on my eyes,” and the phone will find you the exact resources you need. This is incredibly useful, and it’s something I sincerely wish Pixel phones had.

Additionally, the Galaxy S26 series will be the first lineup to support a brand-new iteration of Circle to Search that provides multiple, simultaneous results. If you remember, the whole concept of Circle to Search debuted on the Galaxy S24 series. Now, the Galaxy S26 is evolving it. If you circle a photo of someone wearing an entire outfit, the AI will break down and return separate shopping results for every individual aspect of that outfit. Granted, Circle to Search is fundamentally a Google-made feature, so this tool will eventually come to all Android phones. But Samsung has it first.

The shifting smartphone landscape

So, yes, Samsung does have some legitimately new stuff here. But it’s easy to argue that the vast majority of the new software features on the Galaxy S26 are directly stolen from (or heavily inspired by) the Google Pixel.

I find this interesting because Google’s overall slice of the smartphone market is still very, very small, especially when compared directly to a juggernaut like Samsung. To see Samsung lifting ideas from the Pixel so heavily for this major launch really goes to show how the entire industry is shifting.

Let me put it this way: people are buying more and more Pixel phones every single year. Meanwhile, Samsung’s massive growth has essentially slowed to a crawl. No one knows exactly what the smartphone world will look like five years from now, but from where I’m sitting, it seems like even Samsung finally understands that Google has been on the right track all along.

What do you think? Is Samsung being lazy, or are they smart to adopt Google’s best features? Let me know in the comments below!