Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S26 series, its latest flagship smartphones, highlighting a major push into AI with Alphabet’s Gemini at the core of its new features. The launch marks a pivotal moment in the AI race, positioning Samsung as a key channel for Google’s consumer AI just as Apple prepares to roll out a Google-powered Siri on its iPhones. The S26 series integrates a multi-agent AI system combining three distinct engines: Google’s Gemini for complex, autonomous tasks, Perplexity for real-time web research, and an upgraded version of Samsung’s own Bixby, now powered by a more advanced in-house large language model. This hybrid approach allows the phone to handle diverse AI workloads, reflecting how central AI has become to smartphone differentiation. The standout feature is Gemini’s ability to perform autonomous actions across third-party apps — a significant leap from the S25, which limited such capabilities to Samsung’s native apps. Now, users can ask Gemini to book a ride through Uber, and the AI will open the app, navigate menus, select pickup and drop-off locations, and complete the booking without user intervention. Samsung plans to extend this functionality to food delivery services like Instacart and DoorDash. Charles Uptegrove, Samsung’s U.S. product manager for flagship devices, emphasized the assistant’s growing intelligence, noting it can summarize YouTube videos and add key points directly to Samsung Notes, or automatically schedule events into the Calendar app based on natural language input. This deep integration with Google represents a dramatic shift for Samsung, which once sought to reduce reliance on Google by developing its own Tizen OS and Bixby assistant. Now, the company has embraced Google’s AI as a central pillar of its strategy, even while maintaining partnerships with Perplexity to diversify its AI stack. The result is that Samsung has become the most important distribution channel for Google’s consumer AI, surpassing Apple’s current reach despite Apple’s own $1 billion deal with Google to integrate Gemini into Siri. With the S26, Samsung is not just a device maker — it’s a gatekeeper for AI experiences. Meanwhile, Apple’s upcoming Siri overhaul, powered by Gemini, is drawing intense attention. While Samsung has already deployed AI at scale — with 400 million Galaxy AI-enabled devices globally and a goal to reach 800 million by year-end — the real test lies in how quickly Apple can roll out its new AI assistant and whether it can match the depth of Samsung’s implementation. Beyond AI, the S26 Ultra introduces a new Privacy Display, the industry’s first built-in solution that uses pixel-level control to limit screen visibility from side angles, enhancing privacy in public spaces. As the smartphone market shifts, the battle for AI dominance is no longer just about hardware — it’s about who controls the intelligence behind the screen. And right now, Samsung is leading the charge.