Android 17 could be the major leap forward we needed from Google – has some "amazing things" in the pipeline

Google is promising that Android 17 will bring a turning point to the operating system that will see a shift to a more intelligent experience – one "that truly understands, and works for you". The comments were made by Sameer Samat, president of Android ecosystem, at Galaxy Unpacked yesterday.

We've recently seen Android 17 head into beta, with the launch of the software expected in June 2026. We're expecting to learn a lot more about it at Google I/O, but with Samsung launching potentially the biggest Android phone of 2026, the appearance of Google on the stage should be no surprise.

Picked up by 9to5Google, you can catch the comments yourself in the YouTube video of the event – starting at 1hr 22mins. In the appearance, Samat talks about "fundamentally evolving the platform", before teasing that "we've got some amazing things in the next release of Android, and I'm excited to share more about that in the coming months".

Official Replay | Galaxy Unpacked February 2026 | Samsung - YouTube

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As we've previously seen, Samsung has early access to a new feature from Gemini, which is the ability to search multiple things in a scene as part of Circle to Search. The example is a celebrity's outfit, where you can find out about their entire outfit so you can adopt the look yourself.

Beyond looking at the outfit, you can buy parts of it, which is where agentic AI swings in to do things for you. That's where Google wants to head, where Gemini can take action on your behalf, based on the information that it has about you.

We've already seen that Google wanted to move towards "automation" on phones, where Android 17 can not only create an itinerary for you, but then go on to make the reservations on your behalf, without constant app switching. It's the pulling together of all these tasks that is designed to smooth out the experience.

So far, we don't have specific examples of what agentic AI will be doing, but it's likely that we'll see a lot more talk about it at Google I/O. Gemini currently has access to a great depth of information, the experience isn't fully joined up on Android devices yet – and the AI experience hasn't really changed general phone use so far.

From what Samat says, Android 17 should take a big step in that direction, moving to an experience that's less app-based and more AI-based.