According to ExtremeTech, Samsung announced it will add Google Photos to its smart TVs starting in the new year. The rollout is a slow, three-phase process. First, the ‘Memories’ function, which shows curated stories, arrives on Samsung TVs in early 2026. After a six-month exclusivity period, Memories goes to other TV brands, while Samsung gets ‘Nano Banana’ AI templates from Google DeepMind. Finally, ‘Personalized Results’ for topic-based slideshows lands later in 2026. Users sign in with their Google Account to sync libraries, and photos will work with Samsung’s Vision AI Companion.
The Slow TV Integration Play
Here’s the thing: announcing a feature for 2026 in late 2025 is a very long lead time. It feels less like a product launch and more like a strategic marker. Samsung is basically telling everyone, “We’ve locked in this partnership with Google, so don’t get any ideas with Apple Photos or something else.” The phased approach is interesting, too. Giving Samsung a six-month head start on the core Memories feature is the real carrot. It’s a competitive edge, however slight, in the brutally competitive TV market.
Winners and Losers in the Living Room
So who wins? Google, obviously. Getting its photo service embedded directly into a major TV platform is a huge win for ecosystem lock-in. Every family slideshow on a Samsung TV reinforces Google Photos as the default cloud album. Samsung wins by offering a deeply integrated software feature it didn’t have to build from scratch. But what about the losers? This is bad news for any third-party app trying to be your TV photo viewer. It’s also a subtle blow to Samsung’s own, lesser-known cloud services. They’re ceding this territory to Google. And let’s be honest, your TV’s built-in photo app is probably terrible. This should kill it for good.
The AI Is Coming, Eventually
The mention of ‘Nano Banana’ templates is the real glimpse into the future. Google’s generative AI model will eventually be sitting on your TV, helping you remix and edit vacation photos on the big screen. That’s a clever use case. But “later in 2026” is a lifetime away in AI terms. By the time this actually ships, Nano Banana might be two generations old. It feels like they’re promising a capability they know is coming, but can’t quite deliver yet. Still, the vision is clear: your TV won’t just show photos, it will help you create stories from them.
A Busy Google Photos Ecosystem
This TV move isn’t happening in a vacuum. As noted, Google Photos just had a big 10th-anniversary upgrade with new editing and AI tools. They’re pushing hard to make it more than just a storage dump—it’s becoming a creative suite. Putting that suite on the biggest screen in your house is a logical, powerful next step. It turns passive viewing into a shared, active experience. The integration with Samsung’s Daily Board, that ambient screen when the TV is “off,” is also smart. Your photos become part of the furniture. Now, will people actually use this? Or will phones and tablets remain the primary way we share photos? That’s the big question. But Google and Samsung are betting big on the living room.
