Google May Introduce An Expressive New Material Design Theme At I/O This May

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority

TL;DR

Google is preparing to announce an update to Material Design 3 that makes it more expressive.
A code change suggests that Google will hold a talk about the new expressive Material Design theme at I/O 2025 next month.
We don’t know much about the new version of Material Design, but we’ve already seen it in action in the Android Settings app.

Google overhauls the design of the Android operating system every few years, usually coinciding with a new version of its Material Design language. The last major update arrived in late 2021 alongside Android 12, introducing the concept of dynamic color. Now, Android Authority has spotted evidence suggesting Google plans to introduce another new version of Material Design next month, reportedly aimed at making apps more ‘expressive.’

Earlier this week, I spotted an issue created by developer Michael Winkler on the GitHub repository for the Material Components Android library. In the issue, Winkler asked about the purpose of a new theme named “Material3Expressive.” A Google engineer working on Material Design for Android responded, stating: “Material is experimenting with bringing developers ways to make their apps more engaging by introducing more expressive features. Stay tuned for more updates and guidance!”

The new code in the Material Components Android library, as well as the comment from the Google engineer, confirms that Google is working on updates to Material Design. As for when Google will launch those updates, I found evidence that suggests the company will unveil the new version of Material Design at Google I/O next month. While looking for more clues, I spotted a one-month old patch in the AOSP Gerrit titled “DO NOT SUBMIT I/O 2025 Expressive talk code demos.” The patch adds some new code to the Material 3 Compose library, which enables apps built on Jetpack Compose to use Material Design 3 components.

Prior to publication, I reached out to Google for comment on whether it plans to introduce a new version of Material Design next month, and if so, what it plans to call it. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the matter. Around the same time, the patch’s description was updated to remove the mention of I/O 2025. However, the patch’s topic is still set to ‘io_talk’, which is the only remaining evidence suggesting Google plans to showcase this new version of Material Design next month.

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority

Unfortunately, there’s a lot we still don’t know about this new version of Material Design. We don’t know what it’ll be called, though it’s currently referred to internally as “Material Design 3 Expressive.” That suggests it’s a minor evolution of the existing Material Design 3 framework rather than a true successor.

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority

As for what apps might look like if they follow Material Design 3 Expressive, we may have an idea thanks to some prior digging. Last month, I discovered that Google is working on a big redesign of Android’s Settings app and that the new design is labeled ‘expressive’ internally. This redesign includes updated switches with an X or checkmark icon in the handle and features items grouped into separate cards. It also uses carets to indicate subpages and moves the header to the top, allowing more items to be shown on screen.

Earlier this month, while examining a new AI meme generator in Gboard, Android Authority contributor Kamila Wojciechowska noticed the app used a new progress indicator. Significantly, this indicator doesn’t resemble any current Material Design 3 components.

We’re not certain, but the Android Settings and Gboard apps may have given us our first look at the new Material Design 3 Expressive theme. Furthermore, this issue submitted to the Material Components Android library may offer our first look at how buttons are changing under the new version of Material Design, though we’re not certain if this is an official look or not.

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority

Google I/O 2025 is taking place from May 20 – 21, so we’ll have to wait over a month to find out if Google really does plan on introducing a new version of Material Design. If it does, we’ll likely have to wait weeks or months for the new design elements to be incorporated into Android apps. There’s evidence that Google is already working on redesigning Android to be more expressive, but it’s unlikely we’ll see the new expressive design in the upcoming stable release of Android 16. It’s more likely we’ll see the new design in a future release.

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