Google brings Pixel's notification summaries to Android phones: What's new

Android 16's latest rollout brings AI chat summaries beyond Pixel phones, a notification organiser, and deeper personalisation options to more phones

Google is expanding several Android 16 features beyond Pixel devices, including AI-powered notification summaries and new tools to manage noisy alerts. The update also introduces broader home-screen personalisation, an enhanced dark mode, consolidated parental controls and Fast Pair support for Bluetooth LE hearing aids.

Android 16 Updates: What’s new

AI summaries for chat notifications

Android 16’s AI-generated notification summaries — first rolled out on Pixel phones — are now available for other manufacturers to adopt, including Samsung. The feature condenses long chat messages and busy group conversations into brief snippets that are easier to scan. Google is limiting the summaries to messaging apps for now, avoiding auto-generated digests for categories like news or promotions.

 

Automatic notification organiser

A new notification organiser sorts incoming alerts by priority, bundling and silencing items considered of lower importance, such as promotional messages, social-media alerts and news pings. The aim is to reduce interruptions by pushing less-critical notifications into a quieter, grouped section. 

More home-screen customisation

Android 16 adds additional visual tweaks for personalising the home screen. Users can choose new icon shapes and theme options, while an expanded dark mode now forces a dark appearance in apps that don’t natively support it.

Unified parental controls

Google is centralising parental controls within Android Settings, bringing screen-time limits, app-usage restrictions and downtime schedules into one consolidated menu. The change removes the need to jump across multiple apps or menus to manage a child’s device. 

Fast Pair for hearing aids

Android 16 introduces Fast Pair support for Bluetooth LE hearing aids, enabling one-tap pairing and quicker setup. The feature will debut on devices from Demant, with support for Starkey hearing aids expected in early 2026.

  Additionally, Google has introduced a mix of accessibility, safety and quality-of-life upgrades. Expressive Captions now add tone markers, ambient sound cues and emotional labels to live video captions, offering more context when watching without audio. Phone by Google is testing an “urgent” flag for outgoing calls, while Messages adds clearer alerts and quick actions to handle unwanted group-chat invites. Android also folds Circle to Search into scam detection, letting users circle suspicious content for an instant AI-generated safety overview. Other additions include pinned tabs in Chrome for easier multitasking and new mix-and-match emoji stickers in Gboard’s Emoji Kitchen.