Emojipedia:

Having appeared in various shapes and sizes since Android 4.4; the amorphous blob that defined Google’s emoji appearance since 2013 is being retired.

In its place: a redesign of every emoji in Android, coming as part of Android “O” which was announced today at Google I/O.

Follow the link, take a look at the new artwork. It’s certainly an improvement. Given the fragmentation of Android updates, not sure how big an impact this will have.

Also mentioned by Google is functionality which would allow users to download newer emoji fonts to support the latest emojis even on older Android versions.

So that’s something. But it requires specific action on the part of the user. If they’ve not moved to update to a newer phone or newer version of Android, not sure how effective this will be.