Google is constantly testing new UI tweaks or behavioral changes in its apps. Some of these changes don’t stick, especially when they are limited to beta versions of the apps. Precisely this is happening with Gboard and the minor design change that Google implemented a few months ago.
With a recent Gboard update, Google is rolling back the interface it previously introduced to the keyboard’s emoji picker. It is reverting the broader buttons for emojis, GIFs, and stickers that were added to Gboard beta in May, and replacing them with more compact ones. This appears to be a server-side switch instead of being tied to a version update.
