Samsung could open One UI 9 beta program soon

Now that the stable One UI 8.5 update has started rolling out for eligible Galaxy devices, Samsung seems to be taking the next logical step. The company appears to be preparing for the One UI 9.0 beta program, as related pages have started appearing in Samsung’s official forum in multiple countries.

Samsung has created One UI 9 Beta Program-related sections for the Galaxy S26 series in the Samsung Community forum in Germany, India, Poland, South Korea, the UK, and the USA. These are the countries where One UI beta programs are generally made available by the company.

A One UI 9 firmware for the Galaxy S26 series was recently spotted on the company’s servers, and it is possible that the company releases the beta update for its latest high-end phones by the end of this month. However, this is just our speculation, and Samsung may take more time to release it.

One UI 9.0 is based on Android 17 and is expected to introduce multiple new and improved features. Google is set to showcase Android 17’s new design and features later today during the Google I/O 2026 developers conference.

Android 17 could bring more Quick Settings customizations, expanded App Bubbles, an improved Desktop Mode, an expanded Dark Theme, automatically themed app icons, Live Updates for more types of apps, agentic AI features, and much more. One UI 9 could also incorporate many of those features while adding Samsung’s own design and functionality changes on top.

Based on what we have seen in One UI 8, it appears that One UI 9 may introduce fewer major changes compared to One UI 8.5. Samsung seems to be delivering more features through One UI x.5 updates while keeping One UI x.0 releases relatively modest in terms of feature additions and focusing more on platform updates introduced with major new versions of Android.

You can take a look at an early build of One UI 9.0 in our video below.