Apple is once again experimenting with artificial intelligence features for iPhone users, giving notification summaries another shot—this time with some added caution.
Earlier this year, the tech giant pulled the plug on AI-generated notification summaries for news and entertainment, after users noticed that information from media outlets like the BBC was often misrepresented or flat out wrong.
With the arrival of the public beta for iOS 26, these summaries have quietly returned. But now, if you try them out, you will be greeted by bold warnings before diving in.
A splash screen pops up, asking whether you want to let artificial intelligence summarize alerts for specific categories like news, social apps, or everything else. Tapping on the news and entertainment section, though, sets off a red flag—literally. A warning appears in red, bluntly stating, “Summarization may change the meaning of the original headline. Verify information.”
Choose to go forward and you’ll see another message along the bottom, spelling out that this is still just a beta test and the summaries may contain mistakes.
Apple’s Testing Grounds Shake Up User Choices
Anyone curious to try can toggle these summaries on or off using the phone’s settings. If the experience proves frustrating or unreliable, it just takes a few taps to disable them and stop artificial intelligence from rephrasing your breaking news or entertainment updates.
While the feature is making a cautious return, it’s not final. Apple is clear that changes could come for the better or worse before iOS 26 becomes standard later this year.
Zachary McAuliffe, a beta tester, shared his own encounter with the update. “When I updated to the latest iOS 26 beta, I was greeted by some splash screens which asked for various permissions,” he said, describing the process of switching artificial intelligence summaries on or off.
For those eager to get their hands on early software, Apple’s advice is the same as usual. The beta version is prone to bugs and could drain your battery quicker, so testing it on a backup device rather than your everyday phone is a smart move.
If you’re adventurous and want to see how the feature evolves, remember there’s still no confirmed date for the full release of iOS 26. It’s clear Apple is weighing user trust carefully as it edges back into AI-powered notifications.
