Samsung Files Patent for an AI Undo Button on Photos Whose Originals Are Deleted
Delete the original photo after an AI edit, and Samsung's patent says a tap can still bring it back. The trick is a tiny rebuild kit tucked inside the edited file.
What Samsung's AI Revert button actually does
You're cleaning up a beach photo on your phone. You tell the AI to remove a stranger, hit save, and delete the original to free up space. Two weeks later you wish you still had the untouched shot.
Samsung's patent is built for that moment. When you save an AI edit, the phone tucks a small set of clues into the photo file itself: a written description of what used to be there, a shrunken sketch of the changed area, or the instructions you typed. Later, a revert button appears on the edited photo. Tap it, and an AI model uses those clues to rebuild the missing piece.
The result is the AI's best rebuild of the original, and the clues take far less room than a second full photo. The filing also describes a slider that lets you step back through each edit, one version at a time.
obtain information to replace the modified object with an artificial intelligence (AI) generated object from metadata corresponding to the edited image …
Translation: It reads hidden data in the photo file to figure out how to rebuild the original object.
How the edited photo carries its own rebuild kit
When you save an AI-edited photo, the phone writes two kinds of notes into the file's metadata (the hidden label area inside image files such as JPEG and HEIC). One note logs the history: that an AI made the edit, when, and which area changed. The other holds the data needed to restore what was there before.
The filing lists several things that restoration data can include:
- Prompts (typed instructions to an AI): the original edit instruction, or a written description of what the original showed.
- Pixel information (color and brightness values): often stored at low resolution, then enlarged by an AI.
- Feature vector (a compressed numeric summary of an image area): an AI decoder expands it back into a picture patch.
- Pixel differences: just the color changes between the two versions, which can rebuild an area without running an AI at all.
When you tap the on-screen indicator, the phone reads those notes, runs an image model on the edited picture plus the clues, and shows the result with Save and Cancel buttons. One example keeps real pixels for a person's face and stores only a text description of their clothes. Another writes an opposite instruction ("Remove a portion above the lamp") to undo an addition. A further variation uses the photo's GPS location to pull street images from the internet.
The claims also cover picking among several saved versions, and the model can run on the phone or on a server.
… generating an AI generated image by executing an artificial intelligence model using the edited image and the information …
Translation: The software runs an AI model on the edited photo using clues from the metadata to recreate what was lost.
Why it could save phone storage and regrets
The practical payoff is storage and peace of mind. Photos and videos eat phone space, and AI editing tends to produce extra copies. A file that carries a compact rebuild kit could let you keep one image and still get a way back, instead of choosing between clutter and a permanent edit.
It also changes how you might treat AI edits in a photo gallery. If every edit leaves a trail, you can experiment with removing objects or changing a scene, knowing you can step back to an earlier version or the original. The patent describes this inside a gallery-style viewer, with buttons labeled things like "AI Revert" and "Save." It describes the idea only; it says nothing about when or whether it ships.
Samsung's 28th filing we've tracked since July in our AI photo editing race follows cutting people into stickers and fixing zoom after filming.
AI photo editing has a nasty moment built in: once the original is deleted, your change feels final. Samsung's idea gives you a way back, and you would notice it the day you wish a removed stranger or a missing tree were back in a favorite shot.
The catch is fidelity. Where the file holds only a text description, the AI paints a fresh version from words, so a face or a small detail may come back close but different. Versions that store real pixel data should land nearer the original, which is why the patent's example keeps the face as actual pixels.
For everyday users the benefit is simple: fewer regrets and less storage spent on duplicate photos. It is a modest feature that answers a problem more people will run into as AI editing becomes routine.
Get our take in your Top Stories
Liked this breakdown? Add Patentlyze as a preferred source on Google, and our plain-English take shows up more often in your Top Stories the next time Samsung patent news breaks.
There are more where this came from
We read every patent application Big Tech publishes and send you the ones worth knowing. Plain English, free, every week.
The drawings
24 drawing sheets from US 2026/0320875 A1 · click any drawing to enlarge
Show the other 16 sheets
Want this weekly breakdown for a company we don't cover? Patentlyze Pro →
Be the first to weigh in