The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra will likely be packed to the brim with Galaxy AI features and tools. In fact, it’s all but guaranteed that Samsung will, once again, spend a good chunk of its February event boasting about AI on its newest flagship phone. And, you know what, that’s okay.
What’s not okay, to my mind at least, is the company’s use of AI-generated marketing materials in recent days. Instead of actual real-world videos of the Galaxy S26 Ultra — or at least its new features — in action, Samsung is instead posting downright awkward AI-generated “content” that has almost no substance.
Camera upgrade for the Galaxy S26 Ultra!
Does the improved camera actually capture low-light videos like this? We don’t know! | Video by Samsung
Take, for example, this video that Samsung posted to boast about the improved low-light photography and video-capturing capabilities on the Galaxy S26 Ultra. Near the end of the video there is a disclaimer about how this was generated with the assistance of AI tools.
Though I cannot say with absolute certainty that this is a completely AI-generated video, there are many signs that point to that being the case. From the awkward shuffling legs in the background, the stiff facial expressions of the guy on the floor, and the weird pause at the end, everything screams AI.
I’m actually a huge proponent of modern AI, and I wouldn’t have minded an AI video if it was used in a manner that actually made sense. Boasting about how good your new phone’s camera is going to be is not it, because what we’re being shown is not a real example in the slightest and serves almost zero purpose.
Another AI-generated example of the low-light camera improvements on the Galaxy S26 Ultra. | Video by Samsung
This is another clearly AI-generated video about the Galaxy S26 Ultra being very good at nighttime photography. The tagline “Can your phone do that?” being used by Samsung for its marketing also makes me laugh, because whatever it is that the Galaxy S26 Ultra can do is not being shown off in these marketing videos.AI-generated replies in the comments under these videos are just the icing on the cake of the dead internet theory coming to life right before our eyes. Thankfully, there are at least some people calling out the bizarre overuse of AI by Samsung here.
Let’s talk about the privacy display
This is the worst example of an AI-generated video from Samsung by far. | Video by Samsung
The Galaxy S26 Ultra might be ahead of its time — just like the Galaxy S9 was all the way back in 2018 — because of the privacy display. This is a completely novel addition to the S26 Ultra by Samsung, something that is not found anywhere else in the smartphone industry. It is also the most exciting feature on the phone in my opinion.
Which is why it is such a shame that Samsung chose to market it with possibly the worst AI-generated video that the company has posted yet. In this very awkward video, a woman is shown reading romantic literature on a subway while two people brazenly lean over her phone to read along.
The woman then turns on the privacy display and her phone’s display is shown as having gone completely dark for the people trying to glance at it from the sides. Then, for no reason at all other than the fact that it is a quickly put-together AI video, the two shameless passengers on either side of the woman just get up with blank expressions and start walking away.
As someone who has stayed up-to-date with the modern AI industry ever since ChatGPT first became available to the public, this is a very blatant example of a very poorly done job. A kid with half a minute to write a prompt could have made this video.
If nothing else, at least this video somewhat accurately portrays how we can expect the privacy display to work on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, but would it have really been that difficult to just make a real ad, Samsung? You could have just waited until the February announcement to show this off if this is how you were going to do it.
For a company the size of Samsung, I would much prefer that they pay real actors and record real ads that actually show new features in action. Unfortunately, even poor prompting and cheap AI models will soon get so good that none of us will be able to tell if an ad is AI-generated or something more.
