Chelsie Baham was crowned the winner, defeating Makensy Manbeck by a vote of 7–0.

Big Brother follows a group of contestants, known as Houseguests, who live inside a custom-built house outfitted with cameras and microphones recording their every move 24 hours a day.

[3][4] Each week, the Houseguests compete in competitions in order to win power and safety inside the house.

At the start of each week, the Houseguests compete in a Head of Household (abbreviated as "HOH") competition.

[9] The viewing public is able to award an additional prize by choosing "America's Favorite HouseGuest."

All evicted Houseguests are eligible to win this award except for those who either voluntarily leave or are forcibly removed for rule violations.

[10] Online applications for the season were underway by January 2024[11] while in-person casting sessions occurred in March and April.

Arena competition, entitled "Bandwidth Boosters", Rubina emerged victorious.

On Day 59, by a vote of 4-2, Quinn was evicted from the Big Brother house, thus becoming the 1st Jury Member.

At the end of the episode, AINSLEY announced to the remaining Houseguests that she would be leaving to see the world and that her protégé would be taking over in her absence.

In the "Passcode Protectors" Power of Veto competition, the Final Four Houseguests competed in a knockout format.

Cam and Makensy then competed in Part 2, entitled "Cerebral Shutdown", in which one of them would have to complete a neuro-magnetic impulse device -- set up in advance by Derrick Levasseur's secret force -- and activate it to completely wipe out AINSLEY; Makensy won.

[62] The primary theme for Big Brother 26 was based around artificial intelligence (AI); the season premiere introduced a character known as Ainsley, a personified AI agent who appeared throughout the season (initially portrayed in-person as a fake 17th HouseGuest, and later as an animated avatar) to introduce themed twists and challenges.

[70] Throughout the season, housemates interacted with each other and AI characters such as AINSLEY and Jankie via Proto Hologram devices.

[77] In a change from previous seasons, those watching the live feeds will no longer be able to pause or rewind the video.