Systems and methods for improving the robustness of a DCI triggered beam update in 5G NR are disclosed herein. A g Node B (gNB) may associate a reference signal to a beam pattern (or beam configuration) and prepare Downlink Control Information (DCI) of a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) that includes aperiodic Channel-State Information Reference Signal (AP CSI-RS) information indicating the beam pattern. A user equipment (UE) may decode the DCI, extract the AP CSI-RS information, update the beam pattern of a reference signal based on the AP CSI-RS information, and generate an uplink (UL) feedback message indicating that the PDCCH was successfully decoded by the UE. The gNB may then decode the uplink (UL) feedback message and, in response, update a receive (RX) beam of the gNB to correspond to the beam pattern associated to the reference signal.