How to use Visual Intelligence to analyze any screenshot in iOS 26
Visual intelligence is one of the rare characteristics powered by iOS 18 that we use regularly. Simply keep the camera button on your iPhone 16 (or trigger it with the control center on an iPhone 15 Pro), point your phone on something and press the button.
If it is a sign in a foreign language, you can translate it. If there is a phone number, call it in a single tap. Address? Add it to your contacts or access it. A company can pull hours and contact details, or even a menu if it is a restaurant. And of course, it can identify all kinds of plants and animals, benchmarks, famous works of art, etc. If Apple’s integrated AI does not know enough, you can press the request button to request chatgpt.
Once you remember that it is there, you will find yourself using it all the time. It’s really useful, but it has a serious limitation – in iOS 18, it is limited to what the camera on your phone can see.
With iOS 26, Apple corrects this, by building visual intelligence in the screenshot interface. You can now use the same features fueled by AI on any Screenshot, from any application. It can be a web page, a video, a video game; If you can take a screenshot, you can use visual intelligence on it.
Start with a screenshot
Visual Intelligence still requires an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16 (or later), because it is an Apple Intelligence’s basic functionality.
To take a screenshot in iOS 26, simply do what you have always done: press the volume up and the side buttons at the same time. You will notice that the preview of the screenshot is large now, instead of a small miniature in the area. (You can change this in the settings> General > Screenshot.)
You can be in default marking mode, if, press the Little Pen icon at the top of the screen to see the visual intelligence options instead.
Visual intelligence on screenshots
The use of visual intelligence on screenshots works a lot as it does with the camera.
On the left, you will see a “Ask” button that will ask Chatgpt for the contents of the screenshot. On the right, an image search button that performs a reverse image search with Google. This is a great way to search for an item you want to buy or clothes you see someone wear.
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In the center, you will see certain contextual options based on the contents of the screenshot. If there are phone numbers, you will see options to call them with a single tap. If there is an address, you can search for it on the cards. Long blocks of text will be able to summarize them with AI or read them aloud. Obvious plants, animals or benchmarks can be automatically recognized and appear here – a rapid tap evokes information on this subject.
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Of course, you may not want to look for the whole screenshot. To focus on a single element, just encircle it with your finger. Then press the request button, he will ask Chatgpt about this object. The center will display contextual options only for the surrounded area. And of course, the search for Google images will only focus on the part of the image you have highlighted.
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And that’s really all there is. With iOS 26, any iPhone 15 pro or subsequent automatically allows these visual intelligence features on screenshots. Just make sure you are not in marking mode (press the pen icon) and have Apple Intelligence activated in the settings.
