A clean-up is on the horizon for Gemini’s chat experience closely integrated with the Google app, down to a few new touches designed to help you more effectively start, manage and share conversations. Hints in the latest app build suggest streamlined controls, clearer labelling and quicker access to common tasks—small tweaks that could help make a smoother AI assistant workflow.
What’s new in the Gemini chat UI and conversation tools
In version 16.37.46, the Google app’s ARM64 testers have started to notice a reimagined chat screen by turning on hidden flags. The biggest change: the top bar has a “New chat” shortcut that replaces where the account switcher used to be. It’s a gentle push toward immediacy — one tap to start a new thread instead of drilling into a sidebar first.
An additional down-arrow now appears next to the chat title, bringing down a bottom-sheet menu of quick actions: Share, Pin, Rename and Delete. You also used to have to long-press on a conversation in the sidebar just to access that same set of tools. The sidebar remains, though in that bar itself, it gains a Share option among the other control options, leaving both in place as an avenue for users who wish to broadcast a conversation or export it from the app.
There’s also a slight wording change in the account menu, where “Apps” turned to “Connected Apps.” That moniker makes it clearer that Gemini might hook into other services you’ve authorised — think Gmail, Drive, Maps or YouTube — rather than being a standalone app-picker. These little linguistic changes often cut down on confusion and give the impression of transparency.
Why these Gemini chat tweaks matter for everyday use
AI chat tooling is only as useful as the ease with which you can spin a session up, structure one and share results. A new chat button cuts down on friction for common flows (especially on mobile with all those extra taps). Adding Share in two separate locations caters to different habits: whilst some users live in the thread view, others like to manage from the conversation list.
Pin and Rename are sneakily powerful for people like me, who end up with separate threads per work project, personal research topic, code project or group travel planning. Clear labels remain evergreen while pinning ensures the high-priority threads don’t dip. These are table-stakes features in productivity tools, and they’re what you would expect to become the norm in AI assistants as we accumulate more chat history.
And the bottom-sheet approach also reflects familiar Material Design patterns in other Google products as well, in which common actions appear contextually and don’t get hidden away in those overflow menus. It alleviates the cognitive drain of having to remember where a control lives — which can be especially helpful for less common tasks, such as clearing old chats or renaming a project thread.
“Connected Apps” hint at more tightly integrated services
Changing the label “Apps” to “Connected Apps” is a relatively small change, but it underscores just how much the assistant depends on authorised sources of data in order to be genuinely useful. And when you use that service, the assistant can reference emails, summarise Drive files or compose responses, or fetch a place’s details — always with your permission. A more defined language meshes with a larger industry trend promoting transparent access to data, much like account dashboards on all-encompassing platforms now prominently feature “connections,” “integrations” or “extensions.”
It’s also in line with Google’s stated philosophy of combining on-device context and cloud smarts — all while striking a granular balance. As the assistant gets smarter, the difference between a chat interface and a control centre for data will become increasingly clearer. Another change to the label nudges users to reconsider what’s linked and why.
Parity with rival assistants and the share imperative
Share tools are becoming ever more essential to AI workflows. Some competing assistants already allow sharing of conversations as text or links, so that colleagues can see the prompts and results used. That newly placed feature in Gemini’s UI means you’re more likely to let insights move out of the app altogether, into email, docs, notes or team chats — no copy-paste juggling necessary.
For teams, that makes a difference: fits and starts in other apps have long been a leading time waster on mobile, according to research from productivity vendors. Streamlined shareable information and action shortcuts may cut a few seconds here or there off common tasks, but that ends up adding to minutes shaved across dozens of interactions throughout the day.
Rollout caveats to consider and what Gemini users should watch
These changes are still locked behind server-side flags, and there’s no guarantee they’ll be going live for everyone. When you go there, please remember that Google routinely experiments with UI ideas on small sample sets, takes the feedback into consideration, and when it is ready to roll out a change, sometimes does so by region or device type. If the past is any guide, there should be adjustments — changes to iconography, placement or language here and there — before any more general rollout.
Watch for the account switcher to find a home (or not) in the top bar, or move next to your profile avatar; and how conversation sharing formats emerge. As Gemini gets richer in its “connected” capabilities, interface clarity and one-tap controls will be critical to maintaining an experience that’s approachable yet power-user friendly.
