Android is well-regarded for its notification management capabilities, often considered superior to Apple’s iOS. Nonetheless, there remains room for improvement, and Google appears to be turning to one of its successful services for inspiration to streamline Android’s notification panel.
Last December, we reported on Google’s development of a feature called “Notification bundling” for Android 16. This initiative aims to silence and categorize similar notifications, thus reducing the clutter users often experience. Although not yet operational in Android 16, recent updates suggest that Google is nearing the feature’s launch, with new insights surfacing about its functionality.
Mishaal Rahman, a prominent Android analyst from Android Authority, recently discovered that the Notification bundling feature has been rebranded to “notification organizer” in the Android 16 QPR1 Beta 2 release. Despite the name change, it retains its intended function, automatically sorting notifications into four categories: Promotions, News, Social, and Recommendations, much like Gmail does.
In addition to the naming update, Google has clarified the technology behind the feature. According to Rahman, the notification organizer is powered by artificial intelligence but may produce occasional errors. While the feature is not yet active in the current Android 16 version, Android Authority has accessed its settings page on a Pixel 8 Pro running Android 16 QPR1 Beta 2.
This settings page reveals users will have the option to specify which apps should be excluded from grouping. For instance, users can exempt WhatsApp from being categorized, addressing the issue of repeated misclassifications.
Looking ahead, there is speculation that this feature could debut in the first quarterly update of Android 16. However, not all devices running Android 16 may have access to it. As pointed out by Rahman, the AI component utilized to organize notifications is part of the proprietary Google Notification Assistant service. That said, there’s still hope that Google may enable the feature across the entire Android 16 device lineup.
