One UI 9 Beta 2 Hands the Galaxy S25 This Year’s AI

Samsung pushed One UI 9 Beta 2 to the Galaxy S25, S25+, and S25 Ultra on September 8, adding four Galaxy AI tools from the S26 and Fold 8. The build is ZZI4. It lands only seven days after the first Android 17 beta, and it puts last year’s flagship on this year’s AI list while testers are still filing bugs.

The pack is Now Nudge, My FanCam, custom cards in Now Brief, and Call Brief. Samsung sold those tools on newer phones. The S25 is now running them in a beta.

Seven Days From Beta 1 to the AI Pack

Beta 1 opened on September 1 in India and South Korea, then in the UK and the United States, as a more than 3.8 GB Android 17 install on the Galaxy S25 Ultra with the August 2026 security patch. That first cut added Pay Now inside Now Brief, a more flexible Quick Panel, DeX and Notes tweaks, a location privacy indicator, and accessibility changes. It was a big OS jump. It was not the AI demo from Unpacked.

Firmware tracker Tarun Vats listed My FanCam, Now Nudge, and custom Now Brief cards as still missing on September 5, and asked Samsung to put them in the next build. Three days later, Beta 2 did. India notes list the Ultra package as S938BXXUCZZI4, about 650 MB depending on the model, which is a small delta on top of Android 17 rather than another multi-gigabyte flash.

The quiet fixes will be the ones people feel before they open Gallery. Samsung says Beta 2 also repairs Bixby Vision translation errors, Contacts crashes, and flaky Wi-Fi dropouts. Testers who stayed on Beta 1 for a week were not waiting on a new camera sensor. They were waiting on software Samsung had already shipped elsewhere.

HOW THE AI PACK REACHED THE S25

1. July 22, 2026: Samsung unveils My FanCam, a sharper Now Nudge, and custom Now Brief cards on the Galaxy Z Fold8 family in London.
2. August 7, 2026: The new foldables go on sale with One UI 9 already installed.
3. August 28, 2026: Galaxy S26 One UI 9 Beta 7 adds My FanCam, Call Brief, and custom cards to last winter’s flagship.
4. September 1, 2026: Galaxy S25 One UI 9 Beta 1 arrives as Android 17, still short those four AI tools.
5. September 4, 2026: The Galaxy S26 FE ships with One UI 9 and My FanCam on the phone.
6. September 8, 2026: S25 Beta 2 copies the same AI pack onto the 2025 flagships.

That is 11 days from the S26 beta that added the tools to the S25 beta that gained them, and 48 days from Unpacked. S26 testers sat through months of One UI 9 builds before My FanCam showed up. S25 testers got the same pack in week two.

Testers Already Knew Which Four Tools Were Missing

Samsung’s own changelog line is thin: “addition of new AI functions.” The functions are not thin. They are the ones Fold 8 and S26 owners were told to care about.

WHAT BETA 2 ADDS ON THE S25

The table is the whole joke. None of these tools needed a 2026 camera bump to run. They needed One UI 9 and a flagship chip Samsung already put in the S25.

Now Nudge Watches What Is on Screen

Samsung’s One UI page says Now Nudge offers helpful prompts ready to take you to your next action, such as opening Calendar or saving a place to Maps, without a manual app switch. A US support note describes the same idea as recommendations based on the content currently displayed, and the steps are Settings, Galaxy AI, Now Nudge, with Auto suggestion on and location allowed when the prompt needs it.

That support page still frames the feature as something for phones on One UI 8.5 or later, “including the Galaxy S26 series and newer models.” A Japanese how-to dated August 21 goes further and says Now Nudge is for the Galaxy S26 series and later Galaxy AI phones. S25 testers installing it on September 8 are already past that line.

In use, the prompt can sit above the keyboard in Messages. A shared address can open in Maps. A date can go straight into Calendar. Photo sharing, a call, a reply, even a payment prompt can appear when the screen content supports it. Samsung Account login is required, and the company lists Samsung Messages, Google Messages, WhatsApp, LINE, Signal, and Instagram DMs among the chat apps that can feed it, with the mix varying by country.

My FanCam Recrops After You Hit Record

My FanCam is the concert trick. You shoot the wide shot, then pick one person in Gallery after the fact. Samsung’s Unpacked write-up says that after you launch the tool and choose who to follow, the clip is automatically reframed around the selected subject.

After selecting a video in the Gallery app, users can launch My FanCam and choose the subject to follow. The video is then automatically reframed around the selected subject.

Samsung Newsroom, Galaxy Unpacked, July 22, 2026

On the S26 beta that received it first, the control lives under the Galaxy AI icon while a video plays, then My FanCam in the edit list. Settings shows a My FanCam stub with nothing to toggle. You export the recropped clip in aspect ratios meant for social posts. It is built around a person you select, not a second live camera.

Sunghwan Kim, who worked on the Fold 8 camera AI at Samsung, said the hard part was processing AI workloads entirely on-device without a separate server, because longer clips cost speed, power, and heat. Legal footnotes on Samsung’s European Galaxy AI pages still ask for a Samsung Account and a network connection, and they warn that the tool will not run if it cannot find a subject to follow. Both things can be true: the tracker runs on the phone, and Samsung still gates the feature behind an account.

Call Brief Pins Context to the Call

Call Brief keeps related material on the in-call screen so you do not have to leave the conversation to hunt a booking or a thread. On the S26 beta, the switch sits in the Phone app under the three-dot menu, then Settings, Call settings, Call Brief. It can surface calendar events, reminders, and mail. International calls can also show the other person’s local time on that same screen, which is the one detail that makes late-night overseas ringing slightly less rude.

Now Brief is the daily hub around it. Beta 2 does not invent Now Brief; the S25 already had the briefing. What changes is control. You can build cards from prompts and interests instead of waiting for Samsung’s presets, then pick when those cards should appear.

Samsung Put the Demo on the Fold 8 First

Galaxy Unpacked in London on July 22 treated Now Nudge as the agentic hook on the Fold8 Ultra, where it can suggest adding dinner plans from a chat and open Calendar in Multi Window. My FanCam was the Fold8 creation demo. Custom Now Brief cards were the Flip8 FlexWindow pitch, with health summaries and YouTube tips as the examples on stage.

Those phones reached shelves on August 7. The S26 series, which launched Now Nudge with One UI 8.5 earlier in the year, did not get My FanCam, Call Brief, or custom cards until Beta 7 on August 28. Samsung’s public note for that S26 build was as vague as the S25 one: new AI features. The features were the Fold 8 list, plus a home-screen choice between Finder and Google search bars.

The Galaxy S26 FE then launched with One UI 9 and My FanCam already on the device on September 4. Last year’s S25 still needed a beta on September 8. The order is the tell. Samsung stages the demo on the newest foldable, copies it onto the current S series in a late beta, then drops it onto last year’s flagship before the OS is even final.

This is also not the first time the S25 has borrowed from the S26. Samsung had already pushed S26 AI features on the Galaxy S25 in a June update, before One UI 9 opened. Beta 2 is the same habit on a bigger OS.

Who Can Install One UI 9 Beta 2 on the S25?

Enrolled testers on the Galaxy S25, S25+, and S25 Ultra in India, South Korea, the UK, and the US can pull Beta 2 from Settings after joining through Samsung Members. The Galaxy S25 Edge is not in this wave. US access has followed the unlocked-model path from Beta 1.

BETA 2 ELIGIBILITY

• The phones: Changelog notes name the Galaxy S25, S25+, and S25 Ultra, not the Edge.
• The door: You enroll in the Samsung Members app, then download from Settings, Software update.
• The countries: India, South Korea, the UK, and the United States are the four live beta markets.
• The US catch: Unlocked U1 units have been the ones seeing builds; carrier-locked phones have not been in this program.
• The FE: The Galaxy S25 FE was named in Beta 1 as its first major OS upgrade, but Beta 2 notes stick to the three core models.

If you were not already in the program, Beta 2 will not magically appear. Samsung is asking testers to file bugs in the beta community so the next build can close them. One UI 9 is the second major Android upgrade for the S25, S25+, S25 Ultra, and S25 Edge, and the first for the FE. The Edge is still slated for the public build later, just not for this test wave.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Stable date: Samsung has not posted a public day for the S25 stable One UI 9 package.
• S25 FE Beta 2: Whether the Fan Edition gets this AI drop in the same build is not in the Beta 2 notes.
• Z Flip 7 and Z Fold 7: Those 2025 foldables are in the wider One UI 9 beta conversation, but this package is an S25 series drop.

The S26 series was already being told a stable One UI 9 build was “coming soon” in a September 1 community note. That does not lock a week for the S25. It does show Samsung is finishing the OS on two flagship generations at once, which is why last year’s phone can inherit this year’s AI before the sticker on the box changes.

Three Custom Cards and a Daily Cap

Custom cards are the part of Now Brief that looks like a gift and behaves like a quota. On the S26 beta that received them first, the menu is Settings, Galaxy AI, Now Brief, Custom Cards. You type what you want, or tap chips, then pick when the card should show. The system validates the prompt, builds a preview, and writes the card when you tap Done.

CARD RULES THAT COME WITH THE FEATURE

• The cap: You can keep up to three custom cards at a time.
• The well: Prompts draw from Samsung Health, Samsung Weather, and YouTube.
• The meter: Creating or editing a card is a generative AI action with a daily limit, so a failed prompt can cost you the rest of the day.
• The clock: You choose the time the card appears inside Now Brief, which is the one control that makes a pollen card useful at 7 a.m. and useless at midnight.

Health, weather, and video are not a full dashboard of your life. They are the three wells Samsung opened. A nightly activity and nutrition card is in. A random banking widget you described in a sentence may not be. Once you hit the daily generate-or-edit limit, you wait until the next day. That is the same meter S26 and S26 FE owners already live with, which is another way of saying the S25 did not get a cut-down toy. It got the same gated feature.

Now Nudge has its own gates. Samsung Account. Location permission if the prompt needs a map. Chat support that depends on the app and the country. That is not new on September 8. It is new on this hardware.

Last Year’s Flagship Now Runs This Year’s AI

The S26 still has newer silicon, a newer camera stack, and whatever else Samsung put in the 2026 chassis. What it no longer has is a long, clean lead on the four Galaxy AI tools it used to look current. Those tools are in a beta on the phone people already own.

Support pages that still say Now Nudge is for the S26 and newer have not caught up. The Fold 8 Unpacked demos have. The S26 FE already shipped with My FanCam. The S25 Ultra in India is on S938BXXUCZZI4. Carrier-locked US units and the S25 Edge are not. Horizontal Lock and the Fold 8-style Finder and Google home widgets showed up for S25 testers in Beta 1; the AI list was the piece Samsung held until Beta 2.

Stable One UI 9 for this series still has no public day on the calendar. The next builds will show whether the remaining Fold 8 extras follow the same seven-day hop, or whether Samsung keeps a few items back so the S26 still has a software slide. For the four tools that just landed, that slide is already gone.