It’s World Emoji Day and the Unicode Consortium this week confirmed the new emoji characters that are coming to Unicode 17 in the fall. The new characters include a hairy Bigfoot-ish creature (no, not the AI one in all of the videos that are currently flooding the internet), an orca, ballet dancers, a treasure chest, a trombone, a fight cloud, apple core, and a distorted face.
…have you ever wondered how a new emoji makes its way to your keyboard?That’s where the Unicode Consortium comes in. We’re the nonprofit behind the Unicode Standard—the foundation that, in short, ensures your text (and emoji!) work across all your devices, around the world. Every year, new characters including emoji are added to the Unicode Standard and after a lot of paperwork are added to your device of choice 🙂
Once Unicode 17 is released, Apple artists will begin adapting the new emoji to the Apple emoji style. The process usually takes several months, so the new emoji will likely debut in iOS 26 sometime next spring, most likely in iOS 26.4 or around there.
If you have an idea for a new emoji, you can submit an emoji proposal by following the Consortium’s guidelines and tips.
