Samsung’s latest Android 16-based One UI 8 version has attained its stability stage at the right time. Since the newest major OS is not as massive as One UI 7, Samsung has indeed incorporated several key features that previous versions significantly lacked.
From contextual suggestions to powering intelligent multimodal AI, One UI 8 is perfectly designed to cater to the different needs of the users in the way they want.
With that in mind, Samsung has officially demonstrated the newly added features with One UI 8, focusing on a vast adoption of advanced and personalized AI in users’ daily lives, while also taking a significant leap towards intelligent AI capabilities.
Galaxy AI’s proactive and more personalized experience: Now Bar & Now Brief
Based on context, One UI 8 brings a more personalized and proactive suggestion that is powered by AI, where Galaxy AIbecomes the integral part. Since One UI 7’s Now Bar and Now Brief are now more advanced, smarter, and intelligent with One UI 8, these offer personalized suggestions while also securing all your insights with the additional safety of Samsung Knox.
First up, the Now Bar is a dynamic notification system that offers users the real-time app activity and media playback progress directly on the phone’s lock screen, home screen, and AOD without unlocking the device, and is now integrated with even more third-party apps.
On the other hand, the Now Brief has become smarter with One UI 8; combining enhanced on-device processing, AI personalization, and the user’s privacy, the Now Brief is designed to significantly guide users with proactive suggestions all throughout the day that are easily accessible via the Now Bar on the phone’s lock screen.
At the same time, these personalized insights are apparently secured by the Samsung Knox vault in order to strengthen privacy that creates a more powerful and secure Galaxy AI experience.
Next-generation Security Architecture
Samsung has designed to secure the future AI-powered innovations that are used by Galaxy’s Personal Data Engine (PDE) via an all-new security element, Knox Enhanced Encrypted Protection (KEEP). It encrypts apps by creating an app-specific storage environment so that each app can only access its own sensitive data.
Other than that, Knox Matrix upgrades the security further and provides additional guidance on how users can safeguard their sensitive data.
Smarter Multimodal AI
One UI 8 is designed for visual and contextual intelligence for making everyday tasks more intuitive and effortless. These include:
- Gemini Live has been incorporated with more natural and seamless communication with AI that is catered to the user’s viewing angle or watching in real-time, without the need for switching between apps.
- And Circle to Search with Google: This feature has been enhanced a little more now, providing gamers the ability to circle anything on the screen during the gameplay when requiring gaming assistance. Other than that, the latest version further adds more improved translation capabilities, where the texts will be translated in real time while scrolling and interacting with the screen.
Redefined user experience with seamless productivity & efficiency
Indeed the new One UI 8 version has refined the overall user experience to optimize it across different products in the Galaxy ecosystem; in other words, users will have more versatility to adapt to several unique form factors, from Galaxy phones and tablets.
For more effortless productivity and efficiency, Galaxy AI receives advanced features such as
- First up, the Galaxy AI has been optimized for large-screen devices pretty well, while also adding AI-powered tools like Multi Window for dragging and dropping AI-based content and Drawing and Writing Assists for additional assistance in creativity.
- Audio Eraser for removing or erasing unwanted or unnecessary noise, including wind, crowds, traffic, and more, from an audio or video with just a single tap.
- New clock designs that apparently match the phone’s wallpaper. Not just this, Samsung has also added an adaptive lock screen clock feature, where the clock placed on the lock screen significantly adapts the shape, thickness, and size of the character or object present in the wallpaper.
- AI Results View apparently provides results from AI features in a separate split-screen mode or in a floating view.
- Lastly, users can easily create a wallpaper via recommendations and auto-curated wallpapers from the Gallery app, even on FlexWindow.
- More AI-powered features include Portrait Studio, Call Captions, Interpreter, and Call Transcript.
One UI 8 Supported Galaxy Phones & Tablets
With that, Samsung has even shortlisted a few eligible Galaxy devices that will be getting the latest stable One UI 8 version later this year, starting this week with the Galaxy S25 series. However, Samsung never mentions the Galaxy M and F series devices in the official list, but the eligible models will be getting the update in the course of time.
Galaxy S series:
- Galaxy S25, S25+, and S25 Ultra
- Galaxy S24, S24+, and S24 Ultra
- Galaxy S24 FE
- Galaxy S23, S23+, and S23 Ultra
- Galaxy S23 FE
- Galaxy S22, S22+, and S22 Ultra
- Galaxy S21 FE
Galaxy Z series:
- Galaxy Z Fold6, Galaxy Z Flip6
- Galaxy Z Fold5, Galaxy Z Flip5
- Galaxy Z Fold4, Galaxy Z Flip4
Galaxy Tablets:
- Galaxy Tab S10+ and Tab S10 Ultra
- Galaxy Tab S10 FE, Galaxy Tab S10 Lite
- Galaxy Tab S9, Tab S9+, and Tab S9 Ultra
- Galaxy Tab S9 FE, Tab S9 FE+
- Galaxy Tab S8, Tab S8+, and Tab S8 Ultra
Galaxy A series:
- Galaxy A56 5G, A36 5G, A26 5G, A17 5G, A17, A07, A06 5G, A55 5G, A35 5G, A25 5G, A16 5G, A16, A15 5G, A06, A54 5G, A34 5G, A73 5G, A53 5G, and A33 5G.
