Google’s Sameer Samat took the stage at Galaxy Unpacked today and teased “amazing things” coming to Android 17.
Samat is President of the Android Ecosystem, and started by saying how the platform is “moving from an operating system to an intelligent system.” This “next chapter of Android” is about making a “platform that truly understands and works for you.” In terms of branding and messaging, it’s an evolution of rebuilding Android with AI at the core.
We’ve got some amazing things in the next release of Android, and I’m excited to share more about that in the coming months.
That would be in reference to Android 17, which entered beta earlier this month. Google has yet to really share its tentpole features, but we’re only one preview in.
Historically, that has been Google I/O, but Android 17 will be mostly finalized by May (ahead of the stable June launch). However, Google could use the conference to lay out features that are coming in future Quarterly Platform Releases, with QPR2 in December being the big upgrade again.
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Samat proceeded to talk about “Gemini’s next evolution that lets you get more done across your phone.” These capabilities are coming first to the Galaxy S26 and Pixel 10 series next month. Behind the scenes, this looks to be tied to Android 16 QPR3 enabling screen automation.
Gemini automation was framed as a preview of what’s to come for Android. Today we have the Gemini overlay, Magic Cue, and notification summaries.
The Google executive ended his segment with a catchy “Android is always where you see the future first” line.
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