Technologies

iOS 26 Beta Brings AI Summaries Back to News Apps, but With a Warning

Apple temporarily disabled the feature for those apps in January.

Apple released the fifth public beta of iOS 26 on Aug. 25, and the beta brings a new Liquid Glass design to the iPhones of developers and beta testers, alongside other updates such as call screening. And developers and beta testers with an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone will see AI notification summaries for news and entertainment apps in the latest beta.

Apple disabled AI notification summaries for news and entertainment apps in January. That came a few weeks after the BBC pointed out in December that the feature twisted the media organization’s notifications and displayed inaccurate information.

The latest beta brings those AI summaries back with a new warning.

Before you download the beta and check out these summaries, just know this beta is not the final version of iOS 26. That means, the update might be buggy for you, and your device’s battery life may be affected, so it’s best to keep those troubles off your primary device. If you want to try out the beta, I recommend downloading it on a secondary device.

It’s also possible that Apple could remove or further alter this feature before the final version of iOS 26 is released this fall — I’m guessing in a few weeks.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

iOS 26 beta warns about summary inaccuracies

When I updated to the latest iOS 26 beta, I was greeted by some splash screens which asked for various permissions. One splash screen was for the AI notification summaries. When you see this screen, you have two options: Choose Notifications to Summarize or Not Now. If you tap Not Now, the splash screen goes away.

If you tap Choose Notifications to Summarize, you are taken to a new page where you’ll see three categories: News & Entertainment, Communication & Social and All Other Apps. Tapping one of these categories allows notification summaries for apps in that category. Beneath the News & Entertainment category, there’s a warning that gets outlined in red if you tap it.

«Summarization may change the meaning of the original headline,» the warning reads, adding, «Verify information.»

In the beta, there’s also a warning across the bottom of the screen that reads, «This is a beta feature. Summaries may contain errors.»

After tapping the categories you want, tap Summarize Selected Notifications across the bottom of your screen. If you selected all the categories, this button will read Summarize All Notifications.

And if you don’t want these summaries, you can tap Do Not Summarize Notifications. If you allow these summaries and don’t like them, you can easily turn them off. Here’s how.

How to turn off AI notification summaries

1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap Notifications.
3. Tap Summarize Notifications.
4. Tap the Summarize Notifications toggle in the new menu.

You can also follow the above steps to turn AI notification summaries back on. You’ll have to select which categories you want these summaries for again, too.

Don’t forget, this feature is still in beta so it could be buggy, and Apple could alter or remove it when iOS 26 is released to the general public this fall. There’s no definitive date for when Apple will release iOS 26.

For more iOS news, here are my first impressions of the beta version of iOS 26, how to enable call screening in the beta and all the new features Apple said it will bring to your device later this year. You can get an early view of the upcoming iPhone features with our iOS 26 cheat sheet.

Technologies

You Can Play the New Gears of War Game Now on Xbox Game Pass

Subscribers can also play Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Gears of War is one of the most iconic Xbox series, spawning sequels, spin-offs and books. I fell in love with the series almost 20 years ago when the original landed on the Xbox 360. Microsoft brought the remastered edition of the game, called Gears of War: Reloaded, to Xbox Game Pass and I can’t wait to play it.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, a CNET Editors’ Choice award pick, offers hundreds of games you can play on your Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, Amazon Fire TV, smart TV and PC or mobile device for $20 a month. A subscription gives you access to a large library of games, with new ones, like Doom: The Dark Ages, added monthly, plus other benefits such as online multiplayer and deals on non-Game Pass titles.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source on Chrome.

Here are the games Microsoft added to Game Pass recently. You can also check out other games the company added to the service recently, like Assassin’s Creed Mirage.