December Android 16 update is live: What’s new from Google?

Google launched Android 16 back in June, and with it came a ton of features and updates. Usually, that’s all Google does until the next version, which is expected to be released in beta sometime in January or February 2026. That isn’t the case this time, as Google just announced several new features coming to Android 16 as a sort of mid-cycle refresh for the OS. 

As per the norm these days, a sizable percentage of the new features will be powered by AI and leverage Gemini’s ability to categorize and summarize data. The rest are extra features coming to apps like Google’s Phone and additional customizations you can use to personalize your phone even more. 

Google posted not one, but two blog posts about what’s coming up, so you know it’s going to be good. To save you some clicks, here’s everything coming in the next feature-packed Android 16 update. The December Android 16 update should roll out to Pixel devices starting today (Tuesday, Nov. 2), with other Android devices getting the updates when their OEMs get around to it.

Now, Gemini can help make sense of your notifications.
Credit: Google

AI can manage your notifications

Two of the big changes are coming to notifications. The first one is pretty simple. Google will allow AI to summarize long notifications (such as multiple messages in a group text) into a short summary to let you know what happened when you were away. These summaries can take several texts and sum them up in a sentence or two, making them easier to scan through while checking them quickly. It seems as though this is specifically targeted at group chats with lots of messages, but it may work with other types of messages as well.

Credit: Google

The other big notification change is an organizer function. This is vaguely similar to how Gmail filters messages and looks about the same in practice. Your various notifications will be categorized into things like News, Promotions, and others, thus letting you check your notifications as you please based on what kind of stuff you want to see. It’s a small change, but as a writer who gets probably 55 emails a day, this is going to be an awesome feature for me. 

Let your loved ones know its urgent.
Credit: Google

Mark your calls as urgent

Cell phones make phone calls, and although that isn’t what people use them for most often these days, Google still wants to make the experience as good as possible. One of the new features is the ability to mark a phone call as urgent when you place the call to communicate to the other person that this isn’t an everyday catch-up call and that they need to answer the phone. 

This feature is rolling out to the Google Phone app. When you place the call, you’ll have an option to mark the call as urgent. The recipient will see that the call is urgent on their end. Even if they miss the call, it’ll be marked as urgent in their call logs, so that they know to call back as soon as they can. 

Themed icons and better dark mode

One of the long-awaited and consistently asked for features is the ability to theme icons within Android. This was previously doable with icon packs, but you also needed a custom launcher to use them. Google has finally included at least some custom icon functionality in Android itself, giving users the ability to customize their homescreens further without the need for a ton of additional downloads. 

Credit: Google

The themed icons have three main functions. You can customize the icon shapes, and it’ll theme the icons using the same Material 3 Expressive theming that the rest of your phone uses to theme things. This should create a more consistent and minimal icon design, giving the end user more control over how things look. 

As an aside, Google also mentioned an expanded dark mode that will work on apps that don’t have a dark mode built into them already. That’s not terribly common these days, as most apps have a dedicated dark mode, but it helps smooth out those rough edges for apps that don’t.

Dip out of unwanted group chats quickly (while reporting them)

Getting pulled into a group chat can be annoying, especially when the group starts acting a fool (or worse, when it’s spam). Google Messages is getting a new feature to remove yourself from such chats as quickly as possible. This function works pretty simply. When you’re pulled into a group chat under certain conditions, like being added from an unknown number, you’ll get the option to leave the group chat straight from the chat itself, while also giving you the opportunity to block and report the number as spam. 

Credit: Google

Circle to Search can find spam

Speaking of spam, Google is adding another feature to help you track it down and get rid of it faster. When you receive something that you might suspect to be spam, you can active Google’s Circle to Search function and circle the message. An AI overview will pop up letting you know whether the message is likely legitimate or if it’s definitely spam. If it is spam, you know to delete, block, and report the message so you don’t get it again.

Credit: Google

See emotions in Live Caption video

Live Caption already does a lot for the hearing impaired by letting you read what’s going on automatically. Google is expanding this functionality with what it calls Expressive Captions. The idea is pretty simple. Not only will Live Caption write what people are saying, but will also listen to their tone of voice and show you the emotion with which people are speaking. 

Credit: Google

Given that text has no tone intrinsically, it can lead to a variety of communication problems. This solves that problem by making an educated guess based on the context of the video. It likely won’t be 100 percent accurate all the time, as human emotions are complicated, but it’s still a neat idea, especially when video calling with friends.

Better parental controls

Safety and security are usually in the spotlight when it comes to Android releases, and this time is no different. Google has added some new parental controls to the Settings menu, giving parents an easier place to access such controls on a child’s device. The setting is protected by a PIN, so kids can’t easily get into it, allowing parents to configure things on the child’s device without worry that the child will get into it. 

Some of the new features in this parental control settings menu will include setting the amount of screen time, scheduling downtime to lock the device for things like sleep, controlling app usage to limit time spent on apps or to block them entirely, and granting additional time if need be. Parents will also have direct links to Google Family Link, where they can set more things like app purchase approvals, location alerts, and more.

Emoji Kitchen and voice dictation in Gboard

The Emoji Kitchen is a neat little idea that lets you create custom emojis by combining two existing emotes, much like that silly Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen song from years ago. This one is pretty simple. It still functions as it did in Google’s Gboard app, but now includes new sticker combinations, including some made for the holiday season. 

Look, the little monkeys are hugging each other.
Credit: Google

Gboard is also making it easier to use voice dictation in Gboard. The new gesture is a two-finger double-tap, and once engaged, it will let you use voice dictation without hitting the specific microphone button on the keyboard. It’s a little thing, but the motor skill-impaired may find this useful over having to tap a small button on the keyboard. Gemini’s Smart Dictation feature will also let you type and edit text, and even shorten the text for you with the power of AI. 

Pin your tabs in Google Chrome

How to pin tabs in Google Chrome
Credit: Google

This is exactly what you think it is and works exactly how you think it does. Much like the desktop version, the mobile version of Chrome now lets you pin tabs. These tabs remain even if you clear out the rest of them, allowing you to save important webpages for later. Of course, the bookmarks function also lets you do this, but this is still very useful, especially if you don’t like using bookmarks. 

December Android 16 update: More miscellaneous updates

There are plenty of other small things that got looped into the update, and they’re not quite enough for their own sections, so here’s a rapid-fire list of additional small changes. 

• A shortcut for Live Caption is now available at the bottom of the volume slider. 

• The “Enhanced HDR brightness” setting now has an intensity slider letting you set it either dimmer or brighter. 

• Google’s Health Connect now automatically adds steps tracked by your device. 

• A Pixel Launcher design tweak has increased the size of the microphone, Google Lens, and AI mode icons while adding an extra dash of color. 

• Widgets make a return to the lock screen. Head to Settings > Display & touch > Lock screen > Widgets on lock screen to use them. 

• Google has updated its Guided Frames feature in the Pixel camera app to give longer, more detailed explanations when describing what’s in the frame. 

• Users can also now activate Voice Access by simply asking for it. Say “Hey Google” and then “start Voice Access” instead of hunting it down in the settings. 

• Fast Pair is extending to hearing aids made by Demant, a conglomerate that includes the brands Oticon, Sonic, and Bernafon.

There are also a host of under-the-hood changes that are aimed primarily at developers. These are too numerous to list, but you can see them yourself (along with any features we missed) on the Android Developers website. Some of them include boilerplate things like improved app performance and better battery life as well. 

Android 16 is an update worth having

Despite the fact that this is still the same Android 16 that launched just a few months ago, it feels as much like a new Android update as anything I’ve seen in the last few years. There’s plenty to like here, especially the extra refinements to the design. Notification categories and themed icons win the day in terms of making OS customization and productivity feel more complete, and everything else is just icing on the cake.