OnePlus wants your phone to be less a slab of glass and more a thinking assistant — and with OxygenOS 16, it’s trying to make that literal. The new OS build, announced in mid-October, leans hard into AI: the company has expanded its Mind Space “locker” for screenshots and notes, and — crucially — hooked that locker into Google’s Gemini so the assistant can act on what you’ve saved. The result is less “open an app” and more “ask your phone to do the thinking for you.”

Mind Space grows up (and gets a brain)

When Mind Space first shipped, it was a neat but modest idea: save screenshots and have OnePlus’ AI analyze them for quick, useful summaries. OxygenOS 16 turns that from a sticky note drawer into a working memory. You can now store long, scrolling screenshots (so that one clumsy multi-screen web page doesn’t get chopped up) and attach 60-second voice memos to items, giving the AI richer context to work with. That means Mind Space is no longer just passive storage — it’s structured, searchable material that Gemini can use.

The integration is more than a syncing trick. You can save hotel screenshots, flight options, restaurant pages and maps, then ask Gemini — via the Mind Space connection — to draft an itinerary or summarize the best options based on what you saved. It’s the sort of workflow that blurs the lines between collection and creation: your messy research becomes actionable plans with a single prompt.

On a technical level, you’ll need updated OnePlus and Google apps and to opt in to the Mind Space/Gemini pairing. On supported phones, you’ll be able to invoke Mind Space with a hardware shortcut (OnePlus’ “Plus Key” on some models) or a gesture, then tell Gemini to look through that space and produce something for you — a trip plan, a product comparison, even a short write-up for social or work. Early hands-on coverage suggests the onboarding asks for explicit permissions, which is sensible given the sensitive nature of screenshots and recordings.

A few design and convenience flexes (yes, Apple comparison incoming)

OxygenOS 16 isn’t only about AI. OnePlus has added a suite of lock-screen customizations that will look very familiar to anyone who’s been fiddling with iOS since 2022 — multiple widgets, richer clock and wallpaper controls and more flexible layouts. OnePlus’ designers have also introduced an “Optical Light” effect and a set of motion/animation refinements intended to make interactions feel faster and more fluid. Those touches aren’t radical, but they’re the kind of polish that helps an OS feel modern rather than just functional.

Cross-platform niceties: Apple and Windows get a friendlier OnePlus

If you’ve ever envied how tightly iPhones and Macs work together, OnePlus is trying to narrow the gap. OxygenOS 16 expands cross-platform connectivity: you can tap to share photos to an iPhone, get basic notification sync with an Apple Watch, and — through the O Plus Connect app — remotely control Macs and now Windows PCs. The O Plus Connect app already exists in the App Store as a quick transfer tool; this update folds more remote-control style features into the OnePlus ecosystem so the phone can act as a hub for other devices. It’s a pragmatic approach: instead of forcing users into a single vendor’s ecosystem, OnePlus is trying to play nicely with whichever devices you already own.

ColorOS DNA and rollout plans

If it feels like OxygenOS is becoming more mainstream Oppo/ColorOS than the minimalistic OS from OnePlus’ early years, that’s because it is: OxygenOS 16 is based on Oppo’s ColorOS 16 and most features are shared between the two, launched alongside Oppo’s Find X9 phones. OnePlus frames that as a benefit — shared engineering means faster updates and richer features — but the cultural shift is noticeable for longtime fans.

As for timing, OnePlus opened an OxygenOS 16 public beta on October 17; the stable experience will debut on the OnePlus 15 and then roll out to older handsets in the months after. That staggered approach is standard, but worth noting if you’re looking to try Gemini-powered Mind Space on day one.

This isn’t just a cosmetic update. The Mind Space + Gemini pairing points to the next phase for smartphone OS design: operating systems that are not merely platforms for apps, but active agents that transform user data into useful outcomes. That raises obvious questions — how much of this processing happens on-device versus in the cloud, what data is retained and for how long, and how transparent the consent flow is — and OnePlus’ public notes suggest users will have explicit permission screens. Still, handing a powerful assistant your screenshots and voice notes is a different level of intimacy than granting an app access to your photos.

OxygenOS 16 is a pragmatic, incremental step toward an AI-first phone. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it stitches together useful bits — smarter screenshot storage, voice memos, Gemini’s reasoning — into a workflow that could genuinely save time for people who research and plan on their phones. If you’re a OnePlus user who likes to gather scraps of information and turn them into plans, expect your phone to do more of the heavy lifting going forward. If you’re a privacy hawk, keep an eye on the permissions and where data lives — because this kind of convenience is only as good as the trust it’s built upon.