Ryan Haines / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google’s in the middle of Material 3 Expressive refreshes for many of its Android apps.
- After first seeing a new look for Chat within Gmail, we’re now spotting similar tweaks in development for the stand-alone Chat app.
- Right now we’re still noticing some small differences between the Chat app’s revised interface and what’s happening to Chat in Gmail.
Google’s new Material 3 Expressive design language is currently being adapted across the company’s whole range of apps, and we’ve been having a great time trying to spot all the little changes as Google devs get started implementing them. Earlier this week we shared with you our latest M3E finds for Android’s Gmail app, but those didn’t stop at just email; we also saw some interface changes in the works for Chat. As probably shouldn’t surprise you, that’s not exclusively happening to Chat in Gmail, and we’re now taking a look at some very similar adjustments happening to the stand-alone Chat app.
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Before we start looking at what’s new, since some of these changes are a little on the subtle side, let’s check out a few screens showing off Chat as it has existed up to now:
But upon getting Google’s recent 2025.06.15.771788943.Release update for Chat, we’ve discovered some interface tweaks that seem to follow Google’s new Material 3 Expressive guidelines.
The most obvious there is an increased reliance on background colors to set up contrast and make the app’s UI elements really stand out. And while this is very, very similar to what we just checked out with Chat in Gmail, you’ll notice that here we don’t see any thin lines dividing up individual entries in a list, while those dividers do appear to be a part of the Gmail redesign.
Right now, these changes don’t seem to be widely deployed, and even with a slightly newer build of Chat we don’t yet find them on all devices. But even if the delivery’s a little piecemeal, this kind of Expressive redesign feels like a force of nature at this point, and we’ll continue to see it exert its influence across app UI design over the months to come.
