26 May 2026
Android Developers Blog
Top AI on Android updates for building intelligent experiences from Google I/O ‘26
Posted by Jingyu Shi, Staff Developer Relations Engineer
At Google I/O 2026, we introduced Android's shift from an operating system to an intelligence system. We also demonstrated how you can build intelligent experiences natively with the system and bring the power of Google's AI into your apps. If you missed these updates, check out our quick recap video here:
1. Putting your apps at the center of the intelligence system
The Android OS already enables agents like Gemini to complete task automation, where it can navigate an app on the users behalf.
AppFunctions (Android MCP) provides you with more control over how your app integrates with the intelligence system. This new platform API and Jetpack library are currently available in experimental preview.
- Android MCP: AppFunctions allows your application to act as an on-device Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. It means you seamlessly share your app's tools, services and data to the system and agents.
- Streamlined Development: You can leverage the new skill to easily generate AppFunctions within your codebase.
- Exploration and Testing: We've released a new test agent that allows you to experiment and debug your AppFunctions in a simulated agent environment.
|
Early Access Program: Want to be among the first apps to deploy app functions in production? Join our early access program today!
|
To see it in action, check out the live demo showcased during the What's New in Android presentation.
2. On-Device Power with Gemini Nano 4 Preview
Last month, we launched Gemma 4, our state-of-the-art open models. You can already preview and prototype with the next generation of Gemini Nano (Nano 4) models with the AIcore developer preview. To make productionizing with Gemini Nano more reliable and performant, we are adding a few new features in ML Kit GenAI APIs:
- Prototype to Production: Transition from prototyping in the AICore Developer Preview to building production-ready apps using the ML Kit GenAI Prompt API to leverage Gemini Nano 4 that's launching in flagship devices later this year.
- Structured Output: The upcoming Structured Output API will allow you to define object classes to be returned as outputs from Prompt API, ensuring reliable outputs in productionizing your intelligent features.
- Prefix Caching: It optimizes your on-device inference performance with the prompt API. The new Prefix caching reduces inference time by storing and reusing the intermediate LLM state of processing a shared and recurring part of the prompt.
For highly customized or niche use cases, you can also use LiteRT-LM to bring your own fine-tuned small language model to Android.
3. Hybrid Inference & Agents
To help you build more advanced AI features like hybrid inference and explore building in-app agents, we've released new APIs, framework and guidances:
- Firebase AI Logic Hybrid Inference: This new API provides the simple routing capability between on-device models and powerful cloud infrastructure. You can set explicit orchestration modes, such as
PREFER_ON_DEVICE,PREFER_CLOUD,ONLY_ON_DEVICE, orONLY_CLOUD, based on your need.
- A2UI Jetpack Compose Renderer: The new A2UI library allows your agents to "speak UI". With the upcoming Jetpack Compose Renderer, you can automatically render these A2UI messages as native UI components.
- ADK for Android: The first version of ADK for Android is available for experimentation. It allows you to build multi-agent workflows across both on-device and Cloud models while managing orchestration, context handling and sessions between agents.
From building with on-device models, exploring hybrid inference to building agents, you can see them in action in this talk:
Start Building Today
Whether you are experimenting with AppFunctions to prepare for the intelligence system, or looking to bring the power of Google's AI within your own app, we've got you covered. Dive deeper into the code snippets, samples and comprehensive developer guides on the Android AI hub. For the full breakdown of what's new, check out the official AI on Android at Google I/O 2026 playlist.
We are excited to see what you build!
26 May 2026 5:30pm GMT
19 May 2026
Android Developers Blog
17 Things to know for Android developers at Google I/O

Posted by Matthew McCullough, VP, Product Management, Android Developer
Build High Quality Android Apps Using Agents
1: Android CLI: helping you build with any agent, LLM, and tool
Android CLI is now stable. It offers programmatic tools that allow any AI agent, including Claude Code, Codex, or Antigravity, to perform core Android tasks much more easily and efficiently. With today's release, it also provides a bridge to tap directly into the "heavy-lifting" power of Android Studio to give you the production-ready polish needed for professional Android development. By leveraging the new android studio commands, developers can now grant their preferred agents the ability to perform semantic symbol resolution, analyze files for warnings, and even render Jetpack Compose previews. This release also enables official support for "Journeys" through new Android skills, which enables agents to execute end-to-end UI tests under your direction. Watch the developer keynote, and tune into the What's New in Android tools talk for more information..png)
You can now easily install Android CLI for use with Google Antigravity 2.0.
2: Build production-ready apps with ease in Google AI Studio
Developers and creators can now build native Android apps, simply with a prompt in Google AI Studio. The apps are built with development best practices like Jetpack Compose, Kotlin, and APIs that leverage our recommended developer patterns. Google AI Studio enables developers to prototype, iterate via an embedded emulator, and deploy to physical devices without heavy local installations. Developers are then able to take those apps and share them to Android devices, as well as share them with others for testing through Google Play Console's internal testing track. If a developer wants to prepare their app for a wider release, they're able to take it to Android Studio for advanced debugging, testing, and UI polish. Watch the developer keynote, and tune into the What's New in Android tools talk for more information.
Use the embedded Android Emulator to create Android apps in Google AI Studio
3: Accelerating AI coding assistance with Android Bench
Android Bench is our LLM leaderboard for Android development challenges. The goal is to accelerate model improvements, so you have more useful options for AI assistance. Many of you have been using open-weight models for AI assistance, so we're now adding commonly used ones, such as Gemma 4, to the leaderboard, so you can see how LLMs that offer offline access and additional flexibility for power-users measure up. We're continuously working on increasing the difficulty of challenges we're giving LLMs, to continue encouraging more useful improvements.4: Convert iOS apps to Android with the Migration Assistant in Android Studio
The Migration Assistant in Android Studio is designed to port apps from platforms like iOS, React Native, or web frameworks to native Android. By simply selecting an existing project, developers can have the agent intelligently map features, convert assets like storyboards and SVGs, and implement Android best practices using Jetpack Compose and our recommended Jetpack libraries. This effectively transforms what used to be weeks of manual porting into a streamlined agentic workflow that only takes hours. We shared a preview of the incoming feature in the developer keynote..gif)
A sneak peek of the Migration Assistant converting an iOS app into a native Android app
Building AI Into Your Apps
5: Building Intelligent Apps with generative AI
Generative AI enables you to create apps that are more intelligent, personalized, and agentic than ever before. This year, we introduced the latest advancements in on-device intelligence with a preview of Gemini Nano 4 for tasks like data extraction and summarization. We also expanded cloud capabilities via Firebase AI Logic, allowing developers to leverage Gemini models with robust grounding (including URL, Maps, and web search) to build smarter, more capable assistants. Furthermore, we unveiled our hybrid inference approach and the new Agent Development Kit (ADK) for Android, alongside communication protocols like AG-UI and A2UI that simplify the creation of autonomous, agentic experiences. To start integrating these powerful features, explore the developer documentation, and watch the technical deep dive session where we showcase all these technologies.6: Experiment with AppFunctions today
AppFunctions is an Android platform API with an accompanying Jetpack library to simplify building Android MCP integrations. It empowers your apps to behave like on device MCP servers, contributing functions that act as tools for use by agents and assistants. AppFunctions integration with Gemini is currently in a private preview with trusted testers, and you can begin preparing your apps already. You can sign up for the Early Access Program and start experimenting using the API guidance, sample, and skill today.The Future is Adaptive
7: Android is now Compose First; Views are now in maintenance mode.
Compose is our standard for UI development, and we are moving to a Compose-first approach for all future guidance and libraries. Building on five years of evolution, the latest releases deliver a more mature toolkit, from the highly customizable Styles API to refined shared element transitions and enhanced input support. These updates allow you to build beautiful, adaptive apps with less code and better performance. Learn more about what Compose-first means for Android Development in our blog post.
Build Android UI with Compose
8: Building seamless Android experiences across devices with Jetpack Compose
The Android ecosystem is now Adaptive by Default, moving fluidly across phones, foldables, tablets, cars, XR, and expanding usages with Googlebook and connected displays. With over 580 million large-screen devices, and users on multiple devices spending up to 14x more on apps, the investment in adaptive design presents a massive opportunity. Jetpack Compose is the definitive engine for this transition, offering core tools like our latest Jetpack Navigation 3 release, new experimental Grid and FlexBox layouts, enhanced non-touch input support, and CameraX for correct camera previews across any window size. Furthermore, new skills in Android Studio make updating your existing app to adopt these adaptive patterns easier than ever.
Notability's Android debut sets a new standard for premium productivity apps. Built with Jetpack Compose, Navigation 3, and Kotlin Multiplatform, it delivers an intuitive, adaptive experience across devices.
9: Create seamless experiences for Googlebook
Last week we announced Googlebook, a high-performance laptop that provides a large-screen canvas for your existing apps. Building with adaptive principles today helps ensure your app will work on Googlebook. Get started by reviewing relevant design guidance and developer guidelines for desktop experiences. Try out the new Desktop Emulator available in the Android Studio Canary to to test your apps for this form factor today.
New Desktop Android Emulator
10: Unified widget development experience with Jetpack Glance
Android 17 marks a shift toward a single, Compose-based development model for all widgets. By unifying the experience across mobile, Wear OS, and cars through Jetpack Glance, you can soon scale UI components across the ecosystem with a familiar workflow.The breakthrough this year is the integration of RemoteCompose. On mobile and cars, it powers high-fidelity animations, while on Wear OS, it allows Wear Widgets (formerly Tiles) to render complex UI logic natively on remote surfaces. This ensures peak performance on low-power hardware while allowing a cohesive user journey-like checking a flight status on your car dashboard and seeing gate change updates on your wrist.

Four widgets are shown cycling through in the Android Auto interface. A clock, a contact card, Google Home favorites and a photo.
11: Expand your reach on the road with Android for Cars
To help you expand your reach when you build in-car experiences, we're making it easier to build once and deliver your apps to Android Auto and Android Automotive OS. With the latest releases of the Car App Library, you can build customized, distraction-optimized templated media apps for both platforms. We're introducing new components and template capabilities to give you increased flexibility and more options for laying out content. Parked experiences are expanding too, with immersive video playback coming to Android Auto for phones running Android 17. You can easily adapt your video apps for these parked experiences; apply now to the early access program to publish in these beta categories and learn more about the latest updates in our blog.
To help you expand your reach when you build in-car experiences, we're making it easier to build once and deliver your apps to Android Auto and Android Automotive OS. With the latest releases of the Car App Library, you can build customized, distraction-optimized templated media apps for both platforms. We're introducing new components and template capabilities to give you increased flexibility and more options for laying out content. Parked experiences are expanding too, with immersive video playback coming to Android Auto for phones running Android 17. You can easily adapt your video apps for these parked experiences; apply now to the early access program to publish in these beta categories and learn more about the latest updates in our blog.
12: Accelerate your development with Android XR Developer Preview 4
Inspired by the innovative experiences you've built for the platform, we're continuing to mature our tools with Developer Preview 4 of the Android XR SDK. A key milestone in this journey is the transition of our core libraries, XR Runtime, Jetpack SceneCore, and ARCore for Jetpack XR, moving to Beta soon to provide a more stable and performant foundation. We are also accelerating hardware access through the Android XR Developer Catalyst Program, where you can apply for XREAL's Project Aura, audio glasses, or display glasses developer kits. Watch The latest in Android XR session or read our blog to see how these updates help you build experiences across the ecosystem..gif)
Early preview of the Geospatial API in ARCore for Jetpack XR, enabling high-precision anchoring of digital content to real-world locations.
13: Android is your new home for professional-grade media experiences
Android 17 streamlines the entire media lifecycle with a production-ready toolkit. High-fidelity capture is now simplified with the CameraXViewfinder Composable, which handles complex scaling and responsiveness on foldables and tablets. For post-production, the new Media3 AI Effects library provides a single interface for premium features like Magic Eraser and Studio Sound, automatically optimizing for the device's hardware.The pipeline is completed by CodecDB, offering chipset-specific encoding recommendations to eliminate export noise, and a new Scrubbing Mode in ExoPlayer for ultra-smooth seeking. Whether you're compositing multi-asset edits with Media3 Transformer or using the streamlined CastPlayer API, these updates ensure a professional-grade experience with significantly less development overhead.
.gif)
Low Light Boost and Magic Eraser in action
14: Increase app discovery and engagement on Google TV
Pointer remotes, which enable motion-controlled input, will be a future way for users to interact with Google TV as it unlocks faster user navigation. App developers can start declaring support for pointing input to ensure their apps are discoverable on future TVs with pointer remotes. Additionally, the Engage SDK, formerly known as the Video Discovery API, optimizes Resumption, Entitlements, and Recommendations across all Google TV form factors to boost app discovery and engagement. It's a great time to start onboarding the Engage SDK now, since the legacy Watch Next API, which has been powering your continue watching 1.0 experience, will lose support in the 2nd half of 2027. Get all the details in our blog.15: Performance: the foundation of a great app experience
To help developers navigate memory limits in Android 17, we've launched a suite of optimization tools. The R8 Configuration Analyzer identifies keep rules that are bloating your binary, while ProfilingManager and the integrated LeakCanary in Android Studio streamline memory leak detection. Furthermore, the new Android Performance Analyzer offers advanced AI integration for complex trace analysis and automated SQL query generation to pinpoint performance bottlenecks.And The Latest on Driving Business Growth
16: What's new in Google Play
Today's updates from Google Play help expand your reach and scale your business with less complexity. We're redefining Play Store discovery with an immersive, short-form video format called Play Shorts, while expanding your audience beyond the store with app discovery in the Gemini app on Android and web. Plus, we're introducing powerful new capabilities like agentic catalog management for seamless bulk price and SKU updates, and using Gemini models to enable Play Console to pre-populate store listings from imported documents-making global localization effortless.
Gemini will provide users with app suggestions during a search
17: And of course, Android 17
Android 17 includes new performance & system architecture improvements (in addition to app memory limits) like a lock-free MessageQueue and a GC with more frequent, less intensive young-generation collections to ensure system-wide stability and smoother UIs. The new contact picker and eyedropper API help minimize the use of sensitive permissions and unnecessary access to user data.Review the behavior changes to make sure your app is ready for Android 17, including background audio hardening and SMS OTP protection. Get ready to target Android 17 (API 37) with changes such as mandatory large-screen resizability, certificate transparency by default, and restricted local network access. You can start testing today by enrolling your device in the Beta or using the latest 17.0 emulator images.
One more thing. the third beta of our Android 17 quarterly platform release (QPR1) just came out, and it contains a minor SDK release to support a few features that just couldn't wait for QPR2.
Check out all of the Android & Play Content at Google I/O
This was just a preview of some of the updates for Android developers at Google I/O. Tune into What's New in Android for the latest news and announcements and follow Google I/O for much more over the following week!
19 May 2026 1:00pm GMT
Build native Android apps in Google AI Studio

Posted by Emma-Louise Leavey, Group Product Manager and Mike Taylor-Cai, Product Manager
The power of native Android
While AI has made it easy to generate web-based apps, people want more on their mobile devices. They expect the beautiful and usable modern app design and capabilities that come with native Android user experiences, built with the Kotlin programming language using Jetpack Compose, the official and recommended toolkit for Android development. Native Android apps bring the reliability of offline support, continuous background services, and the deep integration of hardware sensors like GPS, Bluetooth, and NFC. We've brought the technology that enables you to quickly create new projects with Gemini in Android Studio directly into the web-based AI Studio. Now, you get the best of both worlds: the ease of a prompt-based interface paired with the power of the Android SDK, all in your browser, no installation required.A seamless, end-to-end workflow
We have streamlined the entire development lifecycle so you can focus on your idea:1. Create your app and iterate in the cloud: Use the embedded Android Emulator directly in your browser to preview and interact with your app as it's being built. No heavy SDKs to download, no local setup required.

Use the embedded Android Emulator to create and edit Android Apps right in the web browser

Install the app on your Android device

Publish the app to an internal test track in Google Play
Seamless app development handoff
As you iterate on your app in AI Studio, you may find you need more advanced Android tools or support for a wider variety of Android device types. To move beyond the browser, you can seamlessly hand off your project to Android Studio by downloading a ZIP file or exporting it directly to GitHub.

Download zip file of Android app project files
Start building today
To ensure a safe, high-quality ecosystem from day one, we have focused our initial release on specific capabilities including:
- Personal utilities and simple social apps: You can rapidly prototype single or multi-screen apps, such as habit trackers, study quizzes, or event itineraries.
- Hardware-enabled experiences: Because you are building native apps, you can leverage device features like the Camera, GPS/Location, Accelerometer and Bluetooth using the native Android APIs, letting you optimize hardware-level performance.
- AI-powered experiences: You can create apps that feature Gemini API integrations, seamlessly embedding powerful AI capabilities directly into your mobile experience.
What's Next?
We are moving fast to expand what's possible for creators in AI Studio. Here is a sneak peek at what is coming soon:
- Managing Google Play Test Tracks: Coming soon, we will be adding the ability to invite testers to try your app directly from AI Studio.
- Firebase integrations: Out-of-the-box support for Firestore, Firebase Auth, Firebase App Check and other tooling critical for Android developers is coming soon.
Head over to Google AI Studio right now to start building. Here is some inspiration to get you started…
| Turn your Google Pixel Watch into an aviation assistant | |
| Prompt: Build a small airplane "6-pack" instrument app for Google Pixel Watch. The 6 instruments should include attitude indicator, airspeed indicator, altimeter, turn coordinator, vertical speed indicator, and heading indicator. Use the Google Pixel Watch's sensors to power the instruments and display them clearly. Display one instrument at a time on the display. Swiping to the left or right should cycle through the instruments.
|
![]() |
| Interactive Harmonium app on Google Pixel Fold | |
| Prompt: Build a Harmonium app for Pixel Fold devices, which plays like the instrument based on the hinge angle and touch gestures. The app should simulate the bellows and reeds accurately.
|
![]() |
| An Android app for guitarists to become better musicians by jamming to backing tracks | |
| Prompt: Build an Android guitar practice companion app that features a two-tab navigation system: 'Fretboard' and 'Library'.
The 'Fretboard' primary screen must contain an interactive guitar neck UI that visually maps out user-selected root notes, musical scales, and chords. Above the fretboard, implement a WebView-based YouTube player configured to play embedded videos inline. Additionally, include an AI generation feature that uses Retrofit to call Gemini Lyria 3 to create custom, 30-second backing tracks based on the user's currently selected key and scale. The generated audio files and their metadata must be saved locally using a database and displayed as a list in the 'Library' tab, where users can delete or play them.
Finally, implement a persistent, globally visible mini audio player at the bottom of the screen, complete with play/pause toggles, a progress slider for seeking, and timestamp text, allowing the user to seamlessly practice on the fretboard tab while listening to their tracks.
|
![]() |
Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2026 updates on io.google.
19 May 2026 12:45pm GMT





