First look: Google is working on another new animation for Search Live

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The new animation is more “bubbly” and I like it.
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Sep 4, 2026 — 7:15 AM ET

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Lanh Nguyen / Android Authority
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TL;DR

• Google is working on a new animation for Search Live.
• It will feature blurry, colorful blobs at the bottom of the screen while Search Live is active.
• Google is also working on a tweaked UI for Search Live.

If there’s one thing Google loves more than integrating AI into every app it has, it’s tweaking the UI and animations across the plethora of apps and services it offers. So it’s not entirely surprising that the company is working on a new Search Live animation in the Google app, as well as a subtle UI tweak

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Digging through the latest beta version of the Google app (v17.55.8), we managed to enable a new animation for the Search Live experience. Currently, when you use the feature, it shows a gradient animation at the bottom of the screen in different colors. That looks nice, but the new animation looks even better. While it still uses different colors and a gradient, the animation now features the colors in tiny, blurry blobs.

Google is also tweaking the Search Live UI. Right now, the mic icon is on the left, followed by the camera icon in the center, and the transcript icon on the right. Each icon also has a label beneath it. The new UI removes the labels under the buttons for the mic, camera, and transcript. It also swaps the mic and video buttons to put the microphone center stage, and features a waveform animation beside the mic when the user is talking.

Check out the new animation and UI in action below:

These new visual tweaks look really good. Putting the mic front and center could be a great idea, since that’s likely to be the most-used button in the Search Live experience. Though the new Search Live UI and animation look ready for prime time, there’s really no telling when (or if) Google will actually roll them out

⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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