iOS 26 added 25 new Shortcuts actions. Most people will never use them. Here are the five worth your attention — and what to build with each one.
Apple's Shortcuts library has grown quietly for three years. iOS 26 is different. The new actions are mostly AI-powered, which means they do things that weren't possible on-device before: summarizing text, rewriting tone, describing images, and extracting structured data from unstructured inputs. That changes what a shortcut can actually do.
1. Summarize Text with Apple Intelligence
What it does
Takes any text input — a copied article, a long email, notes from a meeting — and returns a concise summary. Runs entirely on-device using Apple Intelligence. No API key, no internet required.
Best use: Paste a long article before a meeting. Get the key points in 10 seconds.The practical version: a shortcut that takes whatever text is in your clipboard, summarizes it to three bullet points, and copies the result back. One action. Works offline. Useful every day.
2. Rewrite Text — Change Tone
What it does
Takes a text input and rewrites it in a specified tone: professional, casual, friendly, concise, or custom. Uses Apple Intelligence. Works on any text you pass to it.
Best use: Write a rough draft. Tap to make it professional before sending.The workflow that works: draft a message in Notes in your natural voice, run the shortcut to convert it to professional tone, copy and send. Three steps, no context switching to ChatGPT.
3. Describe Image
What it does
Takes a photo or screenshot from your Photos library or clipboard and returns a natural language description of what's in it. On-device, instant.
Best use: Log what you're eating by taking a photo. Get a text description for your food journal.This one has more uses than it looks like. Screenshot of a whiteboard at work? Describe it and append it to your notes automatically. Receipt photo? Describe it and log the amount to a spreadsheet.
4. Extract Data from Text
What it does
Takes unstructured text and extracts specific data types: dates, names, amounts, addresses, phone numbers. You specify what to look for; the action returns the values.
Best use: Copy a booking confirmation email. Extract the date and time automatically into your calendar.Before this action, extracting data from text required regular expressions or a full API call to a language model. Now it's a single native action with no setup. The calendar automation alone makes this worth knowing about.
5. Smart Focus Suggestions
What it does
Returns a suggested Focus mode based on your current time, location, calendar events, and app usage patterns. You can use this output to automatically enable the right Focus without specifying conditions manually.
Best use: Add to an Automation trigger. Your phone sets the right Focus mode before you remember to do it yourself.This one is subtle. You're not building the logic yourself — the system is inferring it from your patterns. The result is a Focus mode that adapts over time rather than a static rule you set once and forget.
How to get started with these
Open Shortcuts on iPhone. Tap the + button to create a new shortcut. In the action search, type the name of any action above — they appear by their exact names. Each one can be dropped into a shortcut in under a minute.
The fastest path to something useful: combine any two of these into a single shortcut. Summarize + Copy to Clipboard. Describe Image + Append to Note. Extract Data + Add to Calendar. Two actions, one tap, done.
Ready-made shortcuts that use these actions
We've built six shortcuts using the new iOS 26 AI actions. Free to download, install in two minutes.
Browse free shortcutsThe bigger picture
iOS 26 is the first release where on-device AI actions are general enough to replace specific apps for narrow tasks. You don't need a summarization app if Shortcuts can do it. You don't need a tone editor if the rewrite action is a tap away.
The people who figure this out early save meaningful time each week. The window before this becomes common knowledge is still open.