After weeks of leaks and rumours, Samsung has officially opened the floodgates for the One UI 8.5 public beta program. The update is now rolling out and brings a host of new features, visual improvements and fixes from the original One UI 8 update that rolled out earlier in September 2025.
One UI 8.5 Beta brings more Galaxy AI features and improvements
One UI 8.5 beta is currently rolling out to the Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25+ and Galaxy S25 Ultra users in select regions, including India, the US, South Korea, Germany and Poland. It is based on Android 16 QPR2 and introduces a significant visual refresh. It features new 3D-style app icons, transparency effects and deeper customisation options for the Quick panel and lock screen.
As for One UI 8.5 features, it brings enhancements to Galaxy AI with enhanced image generation tools, thanks to an updated Photo Assist. Users can now generate new images without having to save each iteration and simply take a look at the edit history to review it all. Additional features include Meeting Assist, Touch Assistant, Social Composer and Smart Clipboard.
Connectivity is getting a boost with the ability to seamlessly share storage between Galaxy phones. Besides, Auracast is also improved, followed by redesigned power management controls for battery life.
Customisations-wise, there's now a fully-customisable Quick panel that gives users total freedom for where they can move the tiles. Besides, it also adds support for vertical and horizontal layouts for sliders and certain tiles to ensure no space is wasted. The update also adds blurred background effect and new lock screen clock styles on the lock screen.
As for privacy and security features, there's Privacy Protection that will automatically blur out sensitive parts of the document when sharing it with others. The feature uses the on-device Gemini Nano model to identify important parts of the image.
Certain Android 16 QPR2-specific features are also making their way, including Notification Summaries. The feature leverages Gemini Nano to summarise notifications from apps, making it easier to catch up with your pending notifications in case you've had a busy day.
Like installing One UI 8.0 beta, trying out One UI 8.5 Beta requires going through the same steps. That is going to Samsung Members > tap the One UI 8 Beta banner and enrol. Once you're enrolled, go to Settings > Software update > Download and install to get the latest beta build.
It's worth noting that Beta builds could be unstable and may contain bugs and performance issues. We'd recommend proceeding with caution. The stable One UI 8.5 update is expected to roll out with the launch of the Galaxy S26 series, rumoured on January 24, 2026, at the Samsung Unpacked event.
