What's New

Stay up to date with the latest features, improvements, and fixes on uni.xyz.

All 158 New Features 64 Improvements 59 Bug Fixes 31 Announcements 4

August 2026

Improvement

Find Entries Faster During Evaluation

Jurors and organizers can now search and filter competition entries across the unevaluated, evaluated, and dashboard views.

Improvement

More Free Renders and Clearer Assistant Pricing

Free AI image renders are up to 5 per day, quoted prices now include the payment gateway fee upfront, and the assistant streams answers in real time.

Improvement

Email Alerts for Unread Messages

Leave a direct message unread and we'll now send a reminder email so important conversations don't get missed.

Improvement

A Better Image Viewer, Everywhere

Fullscreen image viewing now supports zoom, a thumbnail strip, and open-in-new-tab, with one consistent gallery experience across projects, journals, and the AI assistant.

New Feature

Chat With Uni Before You Sign In

Curious visitors can now start a conversation with Uni's AI assistant and get answers by just leaving an email — no account required.

New Feature

Your AI Assistant Can Now Take Action

Ask Uni's assistant to create a publication, generate a certificate, export a branded PDF/DOCX/XLSX, check your competition status, or generate images and video — all without leaving the chat.

New Feature

One Search Bar for Everything

A new universal search lets you find projects, publications, organizations, market listings, and profiles from a single search bar available anywhere on uni.xyz.

New Feature

Talk to a Real Human, Right From Chat

When our AI assistant can't fully help, you can now hand off to a real support person without leaving the conversation — with avatars, read receipts, and a clear reply-time estimate.

Improvement

Chat Interface Polish in Unify

Tool and job cards in the chat stream are more compact, new chats now open scrolled to the latest message, and a file-type labeling bug was fixed.

Improvement

Better Access to Competition Resources

Organizer briefs and documents are now searchable as competition resources, with expanded access for Monthly-tier members and up, plus more accurate resource search.

Improvement

Smarter Answers for Thesis & Research Questions

The agent now surfaces relevant competition entries alongside its answers to thesis and research questions.

New Feature

Concept Sheets and a New Assets Page

Generate concept sheets with up to 4 images at once, and find all your generated images organized on a new Assets page.

New Feature

Attach Files to Your Competition Intake Chat

You can now attach PDFs, Word docs, Excel/PowerPoint files, and Google Drive documents directly in chat — the AI agent reads them and factors them into your intake and briefs.

New Feature

UNIfy Widget: Messages, Support & Updates in One Place

The UNIfy chat widget now doubles as a messaging hub — see your recent AI chats and DMs on one Home screen, message the UNI staff support pool directly, and catch platform Updates and Help articles without leaving the panel.

New Feature

3 Free AI Renders Every Month

Every member now gets 3 free AI-generated renders per month on the platform's best model — and if a render fails, your slot is automatically returned so you don't lose it.

Improvement

Smarter AI Assistant: Competition Search, Concept Images & Registration Proof

The AI assistant now searches uni.xyz first when you ask about competitions or topics, can pitch concept images for your ideas, gives proof when it registers you for a competition instead of just saying so, and supports multilingual content discovery.

Bug Fix

Homepage Layout Fixes

Fixed the homepage hero section overlapping the sticky navbar, and improved section spacing so the layout scales properly on phones and tablets.

Improvement

Easier-to-Tap Footer Links & Higher-Contrast Buttons

Footer links are now bigger and easier to tap on mobile, and primary buttons have higher color contrast against their text — both accessibility improvements applied across every uni.xyz app.

New Feature

Delete Your Organization

Organization owners can now permanently delete their organization directly from settings, with a type-the-name confirmation step, instead of having to contact support.

New Feature

Withdraw Your Competition Entry

You can now withdraw your own competition entry yourself, right from your dashboard, any time before the deadline — no need to email the team. (Note: withdrawing doesn't issue a refund, and entries that are already shortlisted or awarded can't be withdrawn.)

Bug Fix

Sharper, Correctly-Cropped Images

Fixed cover photos and thumbnails that were being fetched in the wrong aspect ratio and scaled up, leaving them blurrier than they should be. Images across the site should now look crisper.

New Feature

AI Assistant: Free In-Depth Project Reviews + Web Search

The AI chat assistant now gives everyone, including free members, an in-depth visual review of their project sheets (up to a daily limit), and can search the web when a question needs facts beyond the platform's own pages.

Improvement

Continue Long AI Chats in the Full App

When a chat with the AI assistant runs long, you'll now see a prompt inviting you to continue it in the full-screen app for a roomier, easier-to-follow conversation.

New Feature

New Guide Pages for Publishing, Competing & Joining

Three new pages — /publish, /compete and /join — walk you through how publishing work, entering competitions, and joining uni.xyz actually work, answering common questions with real numbers pulled from the platform.

Improvement

Learn Page: Wider Layout & Smarter Notes Panel

The course learn page now uses the full width of your screen, and on larger displays the lesson notes panel opens automatically alongside the video so you can follow along without extra clicks.

Improvement

Longer Project Videos: Now Up to 30 Minutes

The video upload limit for projects has doubled from 15 to 30 minutes, so you can share longer walkthroughs and demos. If your video is still too long, you will get a clear heads-up before the upload even starts.

July 2026

Bug Fix

Faster, More Reliable Images Sitewide

Images across the platform now load through a faster CDN path, fixing cases where embedded article images failed to load and where an unknown project page would spin forever instead of showing "Project not found".

Improvement

Courses: Instructor & Reviewer Profile Popovers

Instructor and reviewer avatars across course catalog, hero, and sidebar now show a hover popover with their full profile, and the hero banner and sidebar layout got a visual polish pass for better legibility.

Improvement

Video Upload Guidance

Course builders now get a nudge to upload video directly instead of embedding YouTube or Vimeo links, and are notified when an uploaded video is automatically downscaled for smoother playback.

New Feature

Organization Courses Tab

Organizations now have a dedicated Courses tab showing their published courses to the public, with org managers able to collaboratively manage and publish courses alongside the original author.

New Feature

Public Notes with Video Seekbar Markers

Students can now mark their timestamped lesson notes as public, showing them as clickable markers on the video seekbar so classmates can jump straight to the moment being discussed.

Improvement

Better Video Viewing in Project Galleries

Videos in project galleries now show up properly in the lightbox instead of being skipped, cinema mode actually works, grid thumbnails fill their tile, and HLS quality switching is more reliable.

Bug Fix

Fixed Sideways & Rejected Portrait Videos

Phone videos shot in portrait no longer play back sideways, and vertical clips are downscaled instead of being rejected outright — so your video uploads look right the first time.

New Feature

Upload Video Directly to Your Project

You can now add video to your project media straight from the Builder — hit "Add Video", pick a file, and watch a real upload progress bar while it processes. We'll email you when it's ready to play.

Bug Fix

Bug Fixes: Project Videos, Tag Pages & Player Glitches

Fixed videos showing as broken image tiles in the project builder, resolved a timeout on project tag listing pages, and squashed several video player glitches (fullscreen errors, blank slides, and a memory leak during playback).

New Feature

Video Support in Project Galleries

Creators can now add videos alongside images in their project galleries, and viewers can watch them directly in the gallery lightbox — no more static thumbnails standing in for motion work.

New Feature

Timestamped Lesson Notes

Take personal notes while watching a course video and jump straight back to that exact moment later — your notes are private and tied to the timestamp where you wrote them.

Improvement

Smarter Lesson Player: Resume, Shortcuts & Autoplay

The course lesson player now resumes right where you left off, supports keyboard shortcuts (space/k to play, arrows to seek, f for fullscreen, m to mute), and shows an autoplay countdown to the next lesson. A new course sidebar also makes it easier to jump between lessons.

New Feature

Lesson Discussions (Q&A)

Every course lesson now has its own discussion thread, so students can ask questions and get answers right where the content is, without leaving the learn page.

New Feature

Lesson Resources & Downloads

Instructors can now attach downloadable files to any course lesson, and students can grab them straight from the lesson page — handy for slides, templates, and supplementary reading.

New Feature

Rate and Review Courses

Students can now rate and leave reviews on courses they have taken, helping others choose the right course.

New Feature

Bookmark & Share Courses

You can now bookmark courses to save them for later and share them directly from the course page.

Improvement

New Learn Page with a Redesigned Video Player

The course learning experience has a new full-bleed video player with cinema mode, speed and quality settings, plus a curriculum sidebar that tracks your progress and auto-advances between lessons.

New Feature

Institutional Course Assignments

Organizations with institutional access can now assign courses directly to students and professors using shared credits, instead of requiring individual purchases.

New Feature

Courses Get a Redesigned Catalog & Detail Pages

Browsing courses is easier with a new searchable, sortable catalog, and each course now has a richer detail page with curriculum preview, instructor bio, FAQs, and related courses.

New Feature

Join a Course Cohort with a Code

Learners can now join a specific class cohort using an invite code, keeping assignments, due dates, and peer review grouped within their own class roster.

New Feature

Course Assignments, Grading & Peer Review

Instructors can now assign graded work with rubrics, review submissions from a dedicated gradebook, and enable double-blind peer review — giving learners richer feedback beyond quizzes and exams.

New Feature

Buy Courses Directly on uni.xyz

Courses can now be purchased individually with a single click — creators set a price, learners buy and get instant access, no separate membership required.

Bug Fix

Team Members Can Now Access Shared Award Closures

On winning entries submitted by a team, co-authors were previously locked out of the award closure form. Any accepted team member can now view and submit the closure, not just the entry owner.

Bug Fix

Fixed Duplicate Draft Deadline Reminder Emails

Some participants with multiple draft entries in the same competition were getting several identical deadline reminder emails within seconds of each other. Reminders are now sent once per deadline, not once per entry.