When you update your iPhone to iOS 26 and turn on Apple Intelligence, previously unavailable notification summaries for news apps will be turned on automatically.
The fourth beta of Apple’s upcoming iOS 26 operating system has re-enabled the Apple Intelligence-powered Notification Summaries feature for all apps from the App Store’s News and Entertainment categories.
The iOS 18.3 update, released in January, temporarily disabled AI-summarized notifications for news and entertainment apps following cases where the feature would go off the rails, resulting in inaccurate summaries. Apple earned bad press, which prompted it to promise to fix embarrassing summaries that the feature could produce for some news headlines.
iOS 26 re-enables Apple Intelligence notification summaries for news and entertainment apps
Notification summaries for other app categories have been available from the start. This feature is part of the Apple Intelligence toolkit on the iPhone, iPad and Mac.
When you turn on Apple Intelligence, notification summaries are automatically turned on for all installed apps allowed to receive notifications. And now with iOS 26, it seems like AI-powered notification summaries for news and entertainment apps will also be turned on by default. Apple noted that the feature will “automatically appear when available” in a future software update.
You can manage notification summaries for specific apps in Settings > Notifications > Summarize Notifications. Here, you can toggle switches for particular apps on or off. To disable the feature entirely, slide the “Summarize Notifications” switch at the top of this screen to the ON position.
You can also swipe left across a summarized notification on the Lock Screen and choose Options, then select View Settings in the menu. Then, you can disable AI summaries for this app by selecting Turn Off Summaries. AI notification summaries require iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1 or later.
Apple’s disclaimers
To make notifications summarized by AI distinguishable from regular notifications, an AI notification summary uses a special glyph and italicizes the text of the notification. This feature is still in beta, which is prominently displayed when you turn it on. “Summarization may change the meaning of the original headlines,” reads the disclaimer about possible errors.
“Double check important information,” it advises. The setup screen also notes that “summary accuracy may vary based on content.” Apple also acknowledges that“ this beta feature will occasionally make mistakes that could misrepresent the meaning of the original notification.”
Unhinged AI summaries
Unhinged AI summaries for news headlines were covered by the BBC. In one example, an incorrectly summarized notification suggested that the alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson killer Luigi Mangione shot himself. BBC slammed Apple, saying the feature “harmed trust not only in the BBC but in news and information more widely.” A follow-up BBC article revealed additional egregious examples of notification summaries going off the rails.
Apple responded with a public statement. “Apple Intelligence features are in beta and we are continuously making improvements with the help of user feedback,” it reads. “A software update in the coming weeks will further clarify when the text being displayed is summarization provided by Apple Intelligence.”