Oxygen OS 15 brings OnePlus' AI Toolkit features to more devices

Every major tech company is infusing its products with AI features these days, and OnePlus is no different. Just this week, OnePlus unveiled its latest OxygenOS 15 software, which packs a number of AI tricks like reflection removal, unblurring, detail boosting, and more. The Oxygen OS 15 update also expands the availability of three of OnePlus’ existing AI features — AI Speak, AI Summary, and AI Writer — to more devices.

AI Speak is a simple feature that reads articles out loud in either a male or female voice. It’s a bit like the read-aloud feature in Google Chrome, except it works with other web browsers like Firefox as well as with news apps like Google News. In the AI Speak window, you can change voices, restart playback from the beginning, move to the previous or next sentence, or adjust the playback speed between 0.5X, 1X, 1.5X, or 2.0X. You can minimize the window into a tiny pill that floats on the right side of the screen by tapping either the close button or by swiping down on the handle at the top. The pill can be moved up or down but not left or right, and it can be dismissed by tapping the X icon, which also ends playback.

AI Summary is another simple feature that summarizes articles for you. It uses a cloud-based generative AI model (though we’re not sure which one) to create a numbered list of sentences that summarizes whatever you’re reading. Like AI Speak, AI Summary works with not only Google Chrome but also other web browsers as well as with news apps. The AI Summary window has buttons to regenerate the summary, give a thumbs up or a thumbs down for the summary, copy the summary to the clipboard, share the summary with another app, or save the summary to the OnePlus Notes app.

AI Writer is a feature that helps you write some message you want to send to someone. It also uses some cloud-based generative AI model like AI Summary does, and like other AI writing assistants, it lets you generate responses in different tones. It works with many social media apps, shopping apps, email apps, and review editing pages. When you open the window, you first need to enter a prompt that’s up to 1,000 characters long, next you choose whether you want the tone to be “concise,” “detailed,” or “polite,” then lastly tap “generate.” After a few seconds, AI Writer will generate a response in the tone that you chose. If you don’t like the generated response, then you can tap regenerate to have it try again. If you do like it, you can tap copy to add it to the clipboard.

To use AI Speak, AI Summary, or AI Writer, you need to enable the Screen Recognition feature under Settings > Accessibility & convenience. Screen Recognition uses Android’s accessibility features to extract content from the screen for AI Speak and AI Summary to read and summarize, respectively. If you’re wondering why it needs to capture screen content, it’s because the content capture API that apps can use to provide content is not only rarely utilized but is also only accessible to the Android System Intelligence app. Thus, OnePlus essentially had to use a screen reading workaround in order to make its AI features work with a variety of existing apps.

Once you’ve enabled the Screen Recognition feature, you can access AI Speak, AI Summary, or AI Writer by swiping open the Smart Sidebar while in a supported app. (The Smart Sidebar has to first be enabled under Settings > Accessibility & convenience.) You’ll know one of these features is available when you see the Smart Sidebar glow blue for a few seconds after opening an app. If you’re reading content in Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Italian, Thai, or Indonesian, then these features will work, otherwise you’ll get an error that the current language is not supported.

All three of these AI features are part of the AI Toolkit that OnePlus announced back in August. AI Toolkit was initially only available on the OnePlus Nord 4 and OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite because they ran Oxygen OS 14.1, the latest version of Oxygen OS prior to Oxygen OS 15. The features quietly expanded to the OnePlus Pad 2 (which also runs Oxygen OS 14.1) following an update earlier this month, and they’re all now part of the rebranded AI Toolbox 2.0 feature in Oxygen OS 15.0.

AI Toolbox 2.0 not only improves the AI Writer feature by letting you check or rewrite text instead of writing a new message, but it also adds a fourth feature called AI Reply. AI Reply, as we mentioned in our Oxygen OS 15 review, analyzes on-screen content to generate suggested replies in different tones while you’re using messaging apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, or Snapchat. Like with AI Writer, the AI Reply feature lets you choose different tones to replies.

If you have a OnePlus device, then these AI features are just some of the many new features coming in the Oxygen OS 15 update. The update, which is based on Google’s Android 15 software, brings a number of other changes, such as a split notification shade, redesigned icons, Open Canvas, and much more.