Soon after showcasing its new Material You design language at I/O 2021, Google started rolling out design changes to its apps based on the new guidelines. With the Android 12 stable release right around the corner, the company has significantly ramped up its Material You rollout. In the last week alone, Google has rolled out Material You design changes to four of its apps, including Google Phone, Google Photos, Google Duo, and Google Drive. Later came the Material You update for Google Keep, then Google Messages and Google Podcasts. Now we’ve spotted a Material You update for Google Assistant that seems to be rolling out now.
The above screenshots were taken on a Pixel 3 XL running Android 12 Beta 5 with version 12.37.19.29 of the Google App. I do not yet see dynamic colors on own my Pixel 4a with the same Google App version and Android 12 release, which suggests that this may be a staged rollout. Companies often A/B test features with smaller subsets of users to ensure that there aren’t any problems, because if there are, then those problems will likely affect fewer users when it’s noticed.
Once rolled out, the feature brings new Material You dynamic theming, along with some slightly different shaped buttons, to the Google Assistant panel. The rest of the Assistant remains the same.
For the uninitiated, Material You’s dynamic colors feature makes use of monet, a new theme engine introduced in Android 12 — and currently exclusive to Pixel phones — to extract colors from your wallpaper and generate a rich palette of pastel colors. Apps can then apply these colors to their UIs in various ways, which is what apps that incorporate Material You typically do. Dynamic color support is one of the most exciting things to come from Material You, as it makes each app’s design feel more personal. It also maintains consistency across apps and makes your smartphone experience feel more cohesive.
If you want to see if the Google Assistant panel has had a makeover on your Pixel device running Android 12, make sure your Google App is updated by grabbing the latest version from Google Play.
