Why Samsung’s S26 could preview what Apple’s AI-powered Siri can do

Samsung on Wednesday unveiled the Galaxy S26 series, its latest flagship smartphone lineup that puts Alphabet‘s Gemini artificial intelligence front and center.

It gives the search giant’s AI technology a major mobile foothold just before it’s expected to power a revamped Siri on Apple‘s iPhones.

The S26 is notable for the sheer number of AI systems packed into a single device.

Samsung is melding together three separate AI engines: Google’s Gemini for agentic tasks like booking rides and acting across apps, Perplexity for web-based queries, and an upgraded version of Samsung’s own Bixby as the on-device assistant powered by a more capable in-house large language model.

It’s a multi-agent approach that reflects just how central the AI arms race has become to selling smartphones — and how aggressively Samsung is hedging its bets across providers rather than relying on any single one.

Still, the deepest of those partnerships is with Google.

Samsung was the first phone maker to ship Gemini when it launched the Galaxy S24 in January 2024. It deepened the integration with the S25 a year later, making Gemini accessible with a long-press of the side button. Now with the S26, Gemini can do something it couldn’t before: Take autonomous action inside third-party apps, not just Samsung’s own.

The relationship hasn’t always been smooth as Samsung spent years pushing its own Tizen operating system and Bixby assistant in an effort to carve out independence from Google’s ecosystem. But in the AI era, the two companies have locked arms more tightly than ever, even as Samsung simultaneously courts Perplexity to diversify its options.

The result is that Samsung has become the single most important distribution channel for Google’s consumer AI — and one that Apple, despite its own billion-dollar Gemini deal, can’t yet match.

Apple had targeted an iOS 26.4 update in March or April for the initial rollout, but Bloomberg reported earlier this month that some features are now being pushed to May or even September.

Samsung’s S26, available for pre-order now with general availability on March 11, means Gemini’s most advanced agentic capabilities will reach consumers first through Samsung handsets.

Apple commands roughly 25% of the global active smartphone installed base to Samsung’s 18%, according to Counterpoint Research, and iPhone users tend to spend significantly more on apps and services.

The Apple deal is the bigger prize, but Samsung is where Google gets to prove its AI works in the real world right now — a live showcase for the technology that will eventually underpin Siri’s comeback.