What you need to know
- A social media post highlighted Samsung’s reported pop-up bar redesign for its AI, Bixby, in One UI 8.5.
- The company is reportedly altering the Bixby bar to look a little like Gemini, but with a blue/purple gradient effect behind it.
- Samsung has been upgrading Bixby for the past year, fueling it with generative AI, better hands-free capabilities, and the ability to handle complex, multi-step tasks.
Bixby is Samsung’s in-house AI assistant, and it looks like the company isn’t done improving the software.
Some more leaked information coming out from Samsung’s internal One UI 8.5 test might’ve revealed something new for Bixby (via SammyGuru). The SamMobile X account posted a couple of snapshots from the software, showcasing a purported design change for the pop-up Bixby bar on Galaxy. For both the light and dark mode pop-up bars, Samsung is reportedly working on giving them a rolling, gradient blue/purple glow.
More importantly, it seems Samsung is radically changing the bar’s overall internal design.
Currently, the bar features Bixby’s logo on the far left with a section for what you’re speaking to the AI or for what you’re writing (if you tap the keyboard icon on the far right). What SamMobile alleges in its post on X is that Samsung’s new Bixby bar is completely clean, a little similar to Google’s Gemini. In the test, the right side shows a waveform, indicating it’s listening for the user’s query or command.
The publication assumes there’s more in store for One UI 8.5 and Bixby, though it’s just not clear considering how early in development we still are. It adds that Samsung could let Bixby handle a Galaxy device’s “automation and ecosystem” controls more exclusively.
Samsung & Bixby ride again
SamMobile Insights – New Bixby pop-up.Firmware: S938BXXU6CYJ7Status: unreleased (leaked)One UI version: 8.5Android version: 16 pic.twitter.com/2WTIgLve93October 11, 2025
Samsung and Bixby have been down a road together, one that the company says it’s not willing to get off of. Earlier in 2024, Samsung teased that it was preparing a major AI overhaul for Bixby, an upgrade with inspiration taken from OpenAI‘s ChatGPT. The company was working on bringing LLM technology and generative AI to Bixby to help it keep up with advances made by other companies.
That major upgrade was delivered last fall, but it only concerned users in China. What we were forced to look forward to was Bixby’s next-gen upgrades for the Galaxy S25 series earlier this year. The teaser showed how Bixby could handle more complex tasks and instructions involving multiple steps. Users could have the AI scour the internet for information and save that information in various apps for later discovery.
Now, we’re seeing Samsung’s continued persistence with Bixby, as it just doesn’t want to let it go. Aside from more hands-free focused updates and Samsung fueling it with generative AI and the ability to handle complex tasks, One UI 8.5 is seemingly shaping up to take things further. The only question is whether or not this pop-up bar redesign is all we’re getting after the past year of updates.
Perhaps we’ll learn more once the (rumored) One UI 8.5 beta program begins, if that’s truly where we’re headed later this fall.
