As technology companies increasingly reshape their products around artificial intelligence (AI), Google is giving its software ecosystem a more vibrant and playful visual identity, expanding a new gradient-based icon design across a growing number of its apps.

The updated icons move away from the uniform circular style that had become common across many of Google’s services over the past decade. Instead, the new designs feature softer gradients, rounded edges and more varied shapes, building on a visual language already introduced in products such as Google Maps, Google Photos and Gemini.

The redesign places greater emphasis on colour transitions, blending pastel shades with brighter versions of Google’s traditional primary colours. The approach reflects a wider shift in technology design away from the flat and highly simplified aesthetics that dominated the late 2010s and early 2020s, towards interfaces that appear more expressive and visually layered.

Several productivity tools, including Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Forms, Google Sites and Google Keep, also appear to be abandoning the long-standing “sheet of paper” motif associated with Google Workspace-era branding. Google Chat, for instance, replaces its multicoloured speech bubble outline with a predominantly green icon that recalls earlier branding linked to Google Hangouts.

The redesign follows Google’s decision earlier in 2025 to update its most recognisable symbol, the four-colour “G” logo, with brighter hues and a gradient effect. The company said at the time that the refreshed design was intended to reflect its evolution during the AI era while maintaining the familiar four-colour identity associated with the brand.