6 New Android Features: December 2025 Overview

On Tuesday, December 2, 2025, Google announced a total of six new features for Android devices as part of the December 2025 “New Android Features” update.

The six features announced in the December 2025 “New Android Features” update are: a new expressive setting for Live Caption called “Show sound labels,” an expansion of new variations for Emoji Kitchen, “Call Reason” in the Google Phone app, one-tap spam chat reporting in the Google Messages app, AI-powered search for suspicious chats and text messages using Circle to Search, and support for pinning tabs in the Chrome app for Android. Each of these will be rolled out sequentially.

New Expressive Setting: “Show Sound Labels”

Live Caption, which displays subtitles for audio during video playback, social media story videos, and live streams, is getting a new expressive setting called “Show sound labels”.

By turning on “Show sound labels,” emotional labels such as [Applause], [Joy], and [Sadness] will appear in Live Caption when sounds like laughter, applause, or music are detected.

“Android System Intelligence” App Link

Emoji Kitchen: New Variations Expanded

Emoji Kitchen, a fun Google feature that lets you combine two emojis to create a new one, which was launched five years ago on Wednesday, February 12, 2020, as a new feature for the Android version of Google’s Gboard app, has now expanded its variations.

New Emoji Kitchen variations perfect for the Christmas season have been added, such as [⛄️ + ✒️] and [🫂 + ⛄️].

“Gboard” App Link

“Call Reason”

The “Call Reason” feature is being rolled out as a beta feature to the Google Phone app.

The “Call Reason” feature in the Google Phone app allows you to select an “Urgent” flag when making a call, which will then be displayed on the recipient’s incoming call screen. This allows the person you are calling to know it’s an urgent call before they answer.

The “Call Reason” beta feature for the Google Phone app is scheduled to be rolled out soon.

“Phone by Google” App Link

One-Tap Spam Chat Reporting

The Google Messages app is rolling out a one-tap spam reporting feature. When you receive a group chat message from an unknown (and potentially suspicious) number, an alert will appear, allowing you to quickly choose whether to join the chat and reply, or to block the number and report it as spam.

Previously, to report spam from an unknown (suspicious) number in a group chat, you had to open the chat menu and select “Block & report spam.” With the new one-tap spam reporting feature, this process becomes much simpler.

“Google Messages” App Link

Using “Circle to Search” for Suspicious Chats and Text Messages

By using “Circle to Search” on suspicious chats or text messages, you can now get an overview of whether it might be a scam, based on information from across the web.

Furthermore, it will also display relevant guidance and recommended next steps.

Chrome Adds Tab Pinning Support

The Chrome app for Android will now support pinning tabs.

By pinning the tab of a web page you want to save, it will appear at the top of the tab overview page, allowing you to access it more quickly next time.

“Chrome” App Link

Source: Google