Photoshop saves WEBPs as 16bit only

Good morning everyone,

out of the blue, Photoshop now saves WEBPs in 16bit only.
This happens from any kind of source (PSD, JPG, PNG with or without alpha, CMYK TIFF with or without layers) with any WEBP compression, with Save As (for files that allow it) or Save As Copy.

Source files are all 8bit.

I first noticed the problem in version 27.4.0; I reverted back to 27.3.1, and even to 26.11.3 (which I was sure didn’t had this problem), and the problem still occours.

This has been tested on multiple computers, all running Windows 11 24H2 (26100.7781); Windows and drivers are managed by IT, so there isn’t much I can do about those.

Any help is appreciated.