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Introducing Android Performance Analyzer : The Next Evolution in Profiling for Android

By Simon Cooke, Developer Relations Engineer (X) and Mayank Jain, Product Manager (X)

What is Android Performance Analyzer?

Android Performance Analyzer (APA) is Android’s new profiler and performance analysis tool for the Android mobile ecosystem. 

APA is intended as a profiling tool for any developer building for Android who needs to make their app or game run better and faster. It is helpful for all performance-minded engineers, especially those using Vulkan in their game engines who want to squeeze every bit of performance out of their code.

APA aims to be the tool that helps you optimize apps and games for all modern Android devices and simplifies your most common workflows, with a simple interface that anyone on your team can quickly learn and be productive. 

Available today in open beta is APA’s new System Profiler that you can use to analyze the CPU, GPU, Memory, and power usage of your app or game - and see how it interacts with system behavior.

Developed in collaboration with Samsung Austin Research Center (SARC) and LunarG, APA relies on Perfetto for system tracing and its upcoming frame profiling/debugging features (stay tuned!) are powered by LunarG’s GFXReconstruct technology for graphics capture and replay.

Devices running Android 12+ will provide the best experience for capturing system-wide performance and GPU counters and render stages.

We’re also working across the Android ecosystem with our esteemed industry partners to bring more profiling & optimization related data into APA. 


Android Performance Analyzer

How to get Android Performance Analyzer

APA ships in two different forms, and you can download whichever one suits your needs best

The standalone desktop app is intended to be used without an Android Studio project or Gradle build - and provides deep customization of recording configuration, built-in Vulkan layers for graphics analysis, deep inspection of GPU counters and much more.

APA is also cross-platform: works natively on Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

Features in this release

Basic profiling functionality

Capturing your profile data

You don’t always want to take a capture immediately at application or game launch. APA allows you to choose, and capture traces from your device at launch or triggered manually. The user interface allows you to select which GPU counters and other data is captured in a trace - and if you have more complex needs, you can provide your own custom Perfetto configuration.

Deep-Dive System Analysis

With APA, you can analyze the entire system’s behavior in one view. For example, you can easily examine CPU cores - both their frequencies and the work scheduled on them or inspect processes & their thread activity.

For graphics-heavy apps, APA provides GPU performance counter data across hardware from Qualcomm, Arm, Imagination, and Samsung. You can even track battery and power consumption to see the impact of your code on power consumption.

To understand exactly where frames are spending time, SurfaceFlinger events provide deep visibility into the rendering and display composition pipeline, from initial code acquisition to final display. And with the new screenshots feature, you can visually scrub through to easily find the exact areas where you want to focus your attention.

You can open existing Perfetto traces, zoom through the timeline for precise detail, and use rulers to measure the duration of work and events. APA also lets you bookmark and annotate interesting findings, and you can pin critical tracks to the top of your screen to keep your focus exactly where it needs to be as you optimize.

Workflow features

Tabbed interface and split windows: You can open multiple traces in side-by-side tabs or split a single trace into two windows to compare different regions of the same trace simultaneously.

Tabbed interface showing two traces side-by-side.

Project-based workflow: APA uses a project model that allows you to keep track of multiple traces from the project sidebar. This is especially useful for gathering the results of A/B testing and longitudinal tests, and keeping all of your results together for comparison & quick access purposes.

The new project window helps you manage multiple traces.

Navigate visually using screenshots: APA lets you capture screenshots during a trace (without any noticeable performance overhead) to home in on areas where you saw something affect performance by scrubbing through the timeline. Or even just to get your bearings.

Scrubbing the timeline using screenshots for navigation (trace taken from NetMarble’s Seven Deadly Sins: Origin).

Persistent view customizations: When you pin or vertically resize tracks, we save those customizations so that they persist the next time you open the trace.

Analysis tools & new skills for AI agents

Vulkan debug trace markers for render passes: We support Vulkan debug annotations for render passes - which allow you to view Render Pass names you set from your codebase directly in the tracks and slices shown in APA.

This immensely helps you to make logical connections between the workloads you see in the profiler to where they are originating from in your codebase.

Vulkan Debug Markers allow you to keep track of what kind of work is being performed in your trace.

Use AI to build SQL queries for custom analysis work: APA supports trace analysis via SQL queries and ships with a new Perfetto SQL skill for use with your favorite AI agents. This makes it easier to build queries without needing to remember Perfetto SQL schemas or the SQL syntax.



AI helps you build SQL queries to perform custom analysis on traces.

Ask Gemini to analyze traces for you: We’ve also added another Perfetto Analysis skill to answer high-level questions for you - like “Why is my app startup slow?” - helping you to find starting points when analyzing complex traces, using your favorite AI agent to pinpoint the answers.

Agentic trace analysis in Android Performance Analyzer

FPS and Frame Duration times : You can review the FPS and Frame duration time at a glance in the tracks to correlate it with other activity happening in your trace. 


FPS and Frame timing tracks in APA

Speed & robustness improvements

Speed and robustness improvements: Rendering a trace is now typically 6x to 26x faster than Android GPU Inspector, and APA is significantly more stable when working with large traces.

Case studies

We’ve worked with our early access partners to create detailed case studies showcasing how APA could be used to improve performance for Vulkan apps & games.

The Forge Interactive

The Forge used Android Performance Analyzer to identify the need to batch calls to vkCmdBindDescriptorSets, which reduced CPU setup costs by ~50%. This, in turn, slowed heat production on their device by 2-3x, leading to longer session times. They also used APA to identify opportunities to move font and UI rendering work over to the GPU, improving scalability.

You can read the full case study from The Forge here.

Note: This case study demonstrates how to use custom SQL queries in the profiler to generate a total rendering cost metric.

The Forge case study showing frames presented consistently at a stable 30 FPS using APA

NetMarble – Seven Deadly Sins: Origin

Netmarble used Android Performance Analyzer to fine-tune their game Seven Deadly Sins: Origin, focusing particularly on improving performance by making changes to the precision of their shaders, and exploring the impact of upscaling on the performance of their renderer.

This allowed them to reduce the GPU cost of rendering some scenes by up to 90%. 

Read the full NetMarble case study here.

Netmarble validating pre- and post-optimization performance changes using APA for their game: Seven Deadly Sins: Origin

Profiling model complexity in Google’s Filament engine

Google has been improving the Filament glTF Viewer, our physically-based rendering engine.

We spent some time digging into the viewer with a variety of scenes, and showed how to use Android Performance Analyzer to identify scenes that are too complex for the GPU, and how to trim them down to hit a target 60FPS, by improving texture compression and optimizing geometry. Memory consumption was also reduced in this process.

You can read our exploration of Filament here.


Screenshot showing GPU wait time was reduced from 25ms to 20ms by introducing dynamic resolution and measuring it through APA

Try out the Android Performance Analyzer Beta today!

The Android Performance Analyzer is available for you to try out and use today:

This is beta software, which means that you might run into an occasional bug – please report it to us if you find any (Help Menu > Submit a bug report).

We’re excited to see how you use the new Android Performance Analyzer, and how it will help your project’s performance and reliability.

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2026 updates on io.google.
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Android XR Updates for Unity, Unreal, and Godot

Posted by Luke Hopkins, Android Developer Relations Engineer for OpenXR & Ryan Bartley, Android XR Product Manager


Today, we are excited to announce that official support for Unreal Engine and Godot has arrived for Android XR. Alongside these engine expansions, we are also launching new tools designed to boost your productivity and enable new XR capabilities: the Android XR Engine Hub and the Android XR Interaction Framework.

Android XR Engine Hub

The Android XR Engine Hub is currently available for Windows and is your mission control for development. It unifies your workflow across Unity, Unreal Engine, and Godot by serving as a high-speed bridge that streams device-created perception data straight from your device into the engine of your choice.

Real-Time Streaming via OpenXR

The Hub bridges the gap between desktop power and mobile sensor data. Instead of requiring a full build to see how your app reacts to the world, the Hub streams OpenXR extensions from the physical Android XR device directly to your Windows machine.

This means you can iterate on complex interactions in "Play Mode" while receiving live, high-fidelity data from the headset’s sensors. Without this streaming capability, testing even a minor change to eye-tracking or spatial mapping would require a full APK export and installation.

The Hub enables low-latency testing for the following streamed extensions:

Core & Interaction Support

  • XR_EXT_hand_tracking & hand_interaction: Streams 26-point hand meshes and joint data for immediate interaction testing.
  • XR_EXT_eye_gaze_interaction: Virtualizes eye-gaze data to test UI and foveated logic on your PC.
  • XR_EXT_palm_pose & XR_EXT_uuid: Real-time precision tracking and persistent object ID streaming.

Android XR Vendor Extensions

  • Eye & Face Tracking (XR_ANDROID): Stream expressive avatar data to your editor to refine social presence without building.
  • Passthrough & Trackables: Access live environmental understanding—like plane detection and hit testing—directly within the engine's viewport.

By virtualizing the device's hardware capabilities and streaming them over a low-latency desktop bridge, the Android XR Engine Hub allows for game engine developers to quickly iterate.

Download the Hub:
Get the Android XR Engine Hub for Windows
Learn more about Direct Preview

Expanding Game Engine Support

Through our commitments to OpenXR standards, we are ensuring that whether you are a veteran studio or an indie developer, you have best-in-class tools to help bring your creative vision to life.

Unreal Engine

Unreal Engine support is now available in developer preview, targeting version 5.6.1. This integration is built directly on using OpenXR with the support for AndroidXR vendor specific API using the Android XR vendor plugin for Unreal, you can access platform-specific extensions for advanced hand tracking, face tracking, and scene understanding (like plane detection and depth) whilst making use of Unreal blueprints or C++ support.



Get Started with Unreal:

Godot

In partnership with the Godot Foundation and W4 Games, we are bringing official Godot support to Android XR for Godot 4.6.2 and higher.

We are already seeing incredible momentum from W4 as they have ported experiences like MoAT and Expedition to Blobotopia that are already live on Google Play, proving that Godot is ready for production-grade spatial experiences today.

To unlock the full potential of the platform, use the Godot OpenXR Vendors plugin 5.1, which provides the necessary Android XR vendor extensions for features like scene meshing, dynamic resolution, light estimation and much more. We're collaborating with Godot to optimize the OpenXR implementation for the Android XR power profile and input standards.

Get Started with Godot:

Unity

The Unity OpenXR: Android XR 1.13 package is now available for Unity 6.5 Beta. Unity has expanded Application SpaceWarp support to include both uGUI and TextMeshPro. Keep an eye out for the general release of Unity 6.5 and more platform enhancements arriving this summer.

Android XR Extensions v1.3.1 for Unity

Everything else you need for comprehensive platform integration is available in our latest Android XR Extensions release:

  • Spatial API Support: You can now manage the android.software.xr.api.SPATIAL manifest tag directly through XRSessionFeature settings, making it easier than ever to define your app's Spatial API requirements and target levels.
  • Fine Eye Face Tracking: A new Fine Eye Poses feature provides high-precision eye poses using the TryGetFineEyePoses extension method.
  • Direct Preview Support: The Android XR Streaming feature enables Direct Preview support within Unity Editor's PlayMode (Windows only).

Note: Android XR (Extensions): Hand Mesh has been removed; you should now use the unified Hand Mesh Data within the extensions package.

Android XR Interaction Framework for Unity

The Android XR Interaction Framework (AXRIF) is now available in developer preview. AXRIF is an unstyled, opinionated input toolkit that abstracts the complex logic required to build interfaces that are consistent with Android XR system interactions.

Instead of focusing on UI visuals, AXRIF prioritizes the underlying mechanics of the Android XR user experience. At its core is the same Transition Manager that powers the system's rich multimodal inputs, enabling state switching between 6DoF controllers, 3D mouse, hand tracking, and eye gaze. By leveraging this framework, developers can significantly reduce the implementation burden required to bring Android XR's full complement of robust interactions to their apps.

At launch, the framework provides three core capabilities:

  • Automated Multimodal Input Transitions: The framework manages the state machine for switching between input modalities. For example, it handles the transition logic when a user moves from gaze-targeting an object to directly touching it, simplifying simultaneous support for hands, controllers, and mice.
  • Gaze-Assisted Gesture Interaction: AXRIF combines gaze vector targeting with hand gesture recognition (such as pinch-to-select) for precise distant interaction, matching the system's default behavior.
  • Physics-Based 2D UI Interaction: The framework maps high-fidelity hand tracking to 2D plane interactions, enabling intuitive poke and swipe gestures on floating panels while respecting physical boundary constraints.

By adopting AXRIF, your app inherits the platform's native interaction model, ensuring your app feels consistent with the rest of the OS.

Explore the Toolkit:
Interaction Framework Documentation
Download the Unity Package 

Get Started Today:

There has never been a better time to dive into Android XR development. With support across Unity, Unreal, and Godot, the platform is ready for your creative vision, no matter which engine you call home. Explore our official engine partners to get started:


Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2026 updates on io.google.
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What’s new in Android for Cars: Unifying platforms and unlocking premium experiences

Posted by Jan Kleinert, Developer Relations Engineer, Android for Cars, Noam Gefen, Senior Product Manager, and Thomas Weathers, Developer Relations Engineer, Android for Cars


We're thrilled to see developers continuing to bring their apps and experiences to Android for Cars! Over the past year, we've continued to see strong growth and momentum in the app ecosystem on Android Auto and cars with Google built-in. This year at Google I/O, we're introducing updates that benefit both drivers and developers by enabling richer, more differentiated in-car experiences. With new features and templates that allow you to build once to reach users across different infotainment screens and car platforms, it's easier than ever to build for the road.

What's new in the Car App Library

We're bringing more flexibility, new components, and new template capabilities to the Car App Library. Car App Library 1.8.0-beta01 and Car App Library 1.9.0-alpha01 are now available.

Build templated media apps for both Android Auto and Android Automotive OS

Developers can now build customized, distraction-optimized, media browsing and playback experiences for Android Automotive OS, making it easier to build once and deliver these templated media apps to more users and more cars.

To help you test the experiences on Android Automotive OS, we'll be launching updated system images for the Android Automotive OS emulator. Beginning with revision 3, the API level 35-ext15 system images will support apps built using the Car App Library media templates.

Unlocking developer creativity with Car App Library 1.9.0 alpha

With the 1.9.0-alpha01 release of the Car App Library, we're bringing features to help you build more differentiated, expressive experiences across Android Auto and cars with Google built-in.

We're increasing the modularity of existing templates to give developers more flexibility and options for laying out content. These improvements include expanded headers for better visual emphasis, such as on detail pages, spotlight sections that can be placed in scrollable areas to highlight specific content, and grid item variations to support different content types and states.

We're introducing new components and template capabilities to help developers build even more engaging experiences. For media apps, we're introducing an adaptive mini-player, so users can browse while still easily managing playback. Finally, we're adding more component types including Chip and CondensedItem to increase the ways that content can be displayed and interacted with.

App developers, including those shown below, have already begun building upgraded media experiences using these new Car App Library features. You can join these developers and prepare to distribute your own media apps built with the Car App Library templates by applying to participate in our early-access beta program.

Amazon Music, Gaana, PocketFM, Spotify, TuneIn, YouTube Music

Distribute your adaptive video apps to more cars with minimal effort

You’ve already built the apps, now we’re helping you reach more users. For the first time in Android Auto, users will be able to sit back, relax, and watch videos while parked. Apps, like YouTube, will be able to deliver smooth, 60fps HD video playback. This brings the Android Auto parked experience in line with the high-fidelity, immersive experiences users already enjoy in cars with Google built-in.

This capability will start rolling out to compatible vehicles later this year, for users with phones running Android 17 and higher. If your video app is already adaptive, making it available for parked use cases in cars requires minimal effort. To express interest in making your video app available on Android Auto, fill out this form.

Widgets are coming to cars

The next generation of Android Auto brings a more expansive user interface and the Material 3 Expressive design system you know from the phone into the car, built to seamlessly fill larger screens no matter what shape they are. With this new design, the investments you've already made in mobile widgets will be available to users of Android Auto this year, and cars with Google built-in later on, opening up new ways to reach and engage with your users while they're on the road. We're excited to unlock these new glanceable user journeys!

The road ahead

You can look forward to even more updates coming to cars later this year.

  • To deliver a more continuous user experience, we're making it possible for you to provide a templated experience while driving that can seamlessly transition to a native, adaptive app experience when the vehicle is parked.

  • New components and conversational templates will be coming to the Car App Library, so you can integrate agentic and voice-based flows more seamlessly in apps.

  • Improved app brand expression across all car surfaces allow experiences built with the Car App Library to feel easily recognizable by your users.

  • Google Maps SDK support is coming to cars with Google built-in. With this change, you'll be able to use the Google Maps SDK to render map-based content with the MapWithContentTemplate in point-of-interest (POI) and Weather apps on both Android Auto and cars with Google built-in.

Stay updated on these features and start building with the latest at goo.gle/cars-whats-new.

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2026 updates on io.google.

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Android Studio I/O Edition: What’s new in Android Developer tools

Posted by Matthew Warner, Google Product Manager


This year at Google I/O we are going beyond iterative changes, towards a fundamental shift in how apps are built. Our newest tools are built for the agentic era with features that boost productivity for you as an Android developer AND supercharge the AI agents you deploy in your codebase. So, whether you are building exclusively with AI or you prefer being the architect of every line of code, our tools will keep you ahead of the curve.

As we move from "AI-assisted" to "Agentic" development, we’re making it easier than ever to turn a spark of an idea into a high-quality production app with significantly less developer effort.

So what’s new with Android developer tools? We will cover 3 main areas in this blog:

  • Let your agent handle it: Whatever development task you are working on, the Android Studio agent can help: from planning the app architecture and design, to writing code, to unit testing and bug fixing.

  • Any AI provider, anywhere you build: In Android Studio, you can use any model and we even help guide you to the best performing ones. Choose any of the top remote models from Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, or if you need to run locally - Gemma 4 is our most capable and efficient local model! And with Android CLI, you can build Android apps faster and easier using the agents and developer environments of your choice.

  • As always, performance and quality remain top priorities: We continue to invest in the Android developer tools you love: from the Emulator, to Profilers, performance analyzers, and more!

1: Let your agent handle it

Agent skills

Android Studio now supports Agent Skills, modular instruction sets that ground LLMs in specialized workflows and domain-specific knowledge. By adding skills to your project, you can teach the agent to follow specific best practices, architecture patterns, or library workflows. This enables more accurate, context-aware code generation and automated skill activation for an appropriate task, ensuring the agent acts as an expert. We’ve bundled many of the top Android and Firebase agent skills in the latest Android Studio Canary build, so you can skip straight to building!

Skills in Agent Mode

You can create your own skill, or use Android CLI to install our official skills - a repository that covers some of the most common workflows that some Android developers and LLMs may struggle with. They help models better understand and execute specific patterns that follow our best practices and guidance on Android development, such as XML to Compose migration, Edge-to-edge, Navigation 3, and more. You can even build for Android XR, starting with a beautiful Display Glasses app with Jetpack Compose Glimmer. Official Android skills are automatically bundled with the latest Android Studio so the Agent is ready to build!

Build full-stack apps with Firebase in Agent Mode

Firebase services like Auth and Firestore databases can now be enabled directly within Agent Mode in Android Studio using the Agent Skills for Firebase. Your agent will be able to complete Firebase integration and configure backend services. This integration empowers you to build robust, full-stack Android applications without ever leaving your IDE!

Building a full-stack app with Firebase via Agent Mode

Parallel conversations

You can now run multiple conversations with Agent Mode in parallel. In one conversation, run tests and while you are waiting, you can kick off planning mode for a new feature in your app while using a third conversation thread to write documentation for your app. These improvements will save you time and improve your productivity. 

Parallel conversations in Agent Mode

A more capable New Project Agent

Android Studio's New Project Agent has evolved into a powerful full-stack development tool, utilizing a multi-step execution plan and an autonomous "generation loop" that self-corrects build errors and configures dependencies across multiple files. This advanced capability is significantly amplified by its new integration with Firebase Agent Skills, allowing developers to seamlessly build, debug, and deploy complete full-stack applications directly from a single prompt to final production.

Building an app with New Project Agent

Additionally, it now offers support for large screens. You can scaffold your project with layouts, navigation, and components optimized for tablets, foldables, and laptop devices from the get-go. It has additional logic to test your app on large-screen emulators if you have one enabled. Simply configure the required device in the Android Emulator and the Agent can test it out!

Build large screen apps for foldables and tablet devices

2: Any AI provider, anywhere you build

Build Android apps in Google AI Studio

Google AI Studio now features full Android app development capabilities. Users can generate new applications, preview them instantly via an embedded Android Emulator, and deploy them directly to physical devices using ADB over USB. Additionally, developers can publish straight to Google Play; AI Studio handles the app record creation, bundles the package, and uploads it to an internal testing track. For advanced development and production readiness, projects can be exported as a ZIP file and opened seamlessly in Android Studio. To get started, visit Google AI Studio today and start building!

Google AI Studio build mode with Android framework

Android CLI helps you build faster, more efficiently with any agent

Android CLI enables you to build apps using any agent, LLM, and tool of your choice. Android CLI is designed to help AI agents build faster, and use less tokens when compared to only using generic LLM tools. By grounding agents with Android Knowledge Base and Android skills, you can now have your agent of choice follow the latest best practices across any coding environment.

Additionally, when using the latest Canary version of Android Studio Quail, Android CLI enables your agent to leverage powerful capabilities of the IDE, such as analyzing files for issues or finding symbol declarations. Google Antigravity 2.0 now offers official support for Android development with Android CLI.


Android CLI enables any agent with the tools and knowledge to build for Android.

Google AI plan

You can now use your Google AI Pro or Ultra plan to get access to dedicated capacity and higher rate limits for Gemini in Android Studio. This is especially helpful for long agentic Android development sessions, which can require using more tokens. Android Studio detects your subscription automatically when you log in with your Google account.  

Use your Google AI plan in Agent Mode

Gemma 4 for local code assist and on-device AI

Gemma 4 is a state-of-the-art local model trained for Android development. It’s our most efficient local model and is capable of complex multi-step agentic coding in Android Studio. It’s ideal for developers who require data privacy, offline access, or have run into quota issues with other models.


And now in the latest Canary build, you can download and run Gemma 4 directly from the IDE, without needing to set up an external server.

Model selector in Agent Mode

Bring your own model to Android Studio

Android Studio allows developers to bring any model they choose into the IDE for agentic AI assistance. Power your workflow with models like Gemini, GPT, and Claude or use a local model like Gemma 4. This flexibility offers developers greater control over performance, privacy, and cost.

Settings, Model Provider

Android Bench highlights the top models

Earlier this year we launched Android Bench, the benchmark and leaderboard designed to evaluate how effectively LLMs handle real-world Android development tasks. The goal is to accelerate AI improvements, leading to more helpful models for you to use for AI assistance, which will lead to better quality apps for Android users.

You asked us to evaluate open models, so we added them to the leaderboard to help you see how LLMs with additional privacy and offline access measure up. We are also working on significantly increasing the difficulty of challenges we’re giving LLMs, to continue encouraging improvements. This includes creating long running tasks, which take a typical Android engineer multiple days to complete.

Latest results as of May 18th 2026, check here for updates

3: As always, performance and quality remain top priorities:

Test multi-device interactions with the Android Emulator

The Android Emulator now features a new networking stack that enables zero-configuration, peer-to-peer connectivity between multiple virtual devices on the same host machine. This update eliminates the need for manual port forwarding, allowing developers to easily test multi-device scenarios like local multiplayer gaming, file sharing, and companion app pairing. By creating a shared virtual network backplane, the Android Emulator provides a more stable and consistent environment for building complex, interconnected app experiences across different form factors.

Multi -device testing with the Android Emulator

Android Debug Bridge Wi-Fi 2.0

ADB Wi-Fi 2.0 offers significantly more reliable wireless debugging. With the latest ADB command line tool from Android Platform Tools v37 and an Android 17 device, you can now change networks, shut down your machine, and go about your typical day and your devices will stay connected. Additionally, devices with wireless debugging enabled will automatically show in Android Studio’s Device Manager, streaming the pairing process and making it easier than ever to connect Android phones, watches, and more.


Pair devices with Wi-Fi

Android Studio now lets you publish to Google Play for testing

Android Studio now gives you the ability to upload new releases of your app directly to Google Play Console test tracks. You can do this by selecting a new option to continue to “Publish for Testing” at the end of the Generate Signed App Bundle flow. This integration supports uploading an initial release of a brand-new app to Play Console’s internal test track. You can also use this feature to upload releases to existing apps to test tracks. You need to be registered on Google Play Console to take advantage of this functionality. Read the ‘What’s new in Google Play’ blog to learn about all the updates from Play at I/O.

Upload App Bundle to Google Play

Android developer verification support

You can now see your app's registration status right in Android Studio when you generate a signed App Bundle or APK. Seeing this information in Android Studio enables you to address registration issues early and ensure your apps are ready before the verification requirement goes into effect for certified Android devices starting in September 2026.

App registration status with Android developer verification

Memory leak detection with LeakCanary

Memory leaks in Android occur when your code holds onto an object's reference long after its life cycle has ended. This prevents the Garbage Collector (GC) from reclaiming that memory, eventually leading to sluggish performance or OutOfMemoryError (OOM).

The Android Studio LeakCanary profiler task significantly enhances developer productivity by enabling the analysis and inspection of memory leak traces directly on the desktop development environment rather than on the mobile device. Furthermore, Android Studio streamlines troubleshooting by providing tools like “Go to declaration” to map the leak analysis directly to the codebase, allowing developers to quickly locate and resolve memory leaks.

Starting from the Android Studio Quail 1 release, you can now also request Gemini to review the memory leak for you using the “Fix with Agent” button.

Review memory leaks identified via LeakCanary through the “Fix with Agent” button

Android Performance Analyzer (APA)

Android Performance Analyzer (APA) is the next generation of performance profiler for Android and provides a cohesive analysis of CPU, GPU, memory, and power usage for your apps and games running on Android 12+ devices. APA is engineered for reliability and performance with trace rendering speeds which are up to 26x faster from previous tooling.

Android Performance Analyzer (APA) running in Android Studio showing two traces side by side

APA integrates natively with AI agents and offers two new skills: Perfetto SQL skill and the Perfetto Analysis skill, which helps with questions like "Why is my app startup slow?"

Analysis of traces using Perfetto Analysis skill

R8 Configuration Analyzer

R8 is one of the best ways to improve your app’s performance and reduce memory footprint. The performance benefits you can get from R8 are directly correlated to how much of your codebase R8 is able to optimize. We’ve introduced a new tool to help you to unlock the maximum optimization from R8 – the R8 Configuration Analyzer. It provides insights into R8 configuration quality and how your keep rules impact your app. We have also introduced three scores that show how much of your codebase is available for optimization, obfuscation, and shrinking.

Suggested fixes for crashes with Agent integration in AQI

The App Quality Insights tool window is now integrated with the AI agent to analyze crash data along with your source code to provide detailed explanations and suggest potential fixes. After selecting a crash in the App Quality Insights tool window, navigate to the Insights tab and click “See more” to see a detailed explanation of the crash. Click “Fix with AI” to have the agent suggest code changes that you can review and accept.

App Quality Insights and Fix with AI

Get started

Android Studio is closing the gap between ideation and implementation. With powerful tools built for agentic development, it’s never been easier to build and ship high-quality Android apps.

Download the latest Android Studio Quail preview build and try these new features. As always, your feedback is crucial to us. Check known issues, report bugs, and be part of our vibrant community on LinkedIn, YouTube, or X. Happy coding!

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2026 updates on io.google.
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17 Things to know for Android developers at Google I/O

Posted by Matthew McCullough, VP, Product Management, Android Developer

Today at Google I/O, we announced the many ways we’re powering agentic workflows to increase your productivity and ensure your apps shine across the expanding Android ecosystem. Here’s a recap of 17 of our favorite announcements for Android developers; you can also see what was announced last week in The Android Show: I/O Edition. Stay tuned over the next two days as we dive into all of the topics in more detail!

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.    

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. 
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.

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.

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.

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!

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Build native Android apps in Google AI Studio

Posted by Emma-Louise Leavey, Group Product Manager and Mike Taylor-Cai, Product Manager


Starting today Google AI Studio can build entire Android apps for you in minutes from just a prompt. You don't need to install any software or configure any libraries, which significantly lowers the barrier to development. Whether you’re a seasoned developer looking to prototype at lightning speed or a creator building your first-ever mobile experience, you can now go from a single prompt to a high-quality, Kotlin-based Android app in AI Studio. You can easily install the app on your device, share it with others for testing, or send it to Android Studio for any further development.

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

2. Install instantly: Connect your Android phone using a USB cable and install your app directly from AI Studio using the integrated Android Debug Bridge (adb).

Install the app on your Android device

3. Streamlined Publish to Google Play: Using your Google Play developer account, you can now publish your app directly from AI Studio for testing. AI Studio will automatically create your app record, package the bundle, and upload it to an internal testing track in Google Play Developer Console. Your app is available for you to install within minutes, and you can automatically update your app on your device as you develop it further in AI Studio. 

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

When transitioning to a team environment or local development, you can leverage any IDE or agent you prefer. For a specialized experience, we recommend Gemini in Android Studio, which features models designed with Android in mind, or Antigravity, which integrates Android CLI commands into Google’s agentic development platform. This workflow makes building high-quality apps more accessible while giving you total flexibility in how you use AI to scale your project.

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.
We are looking forward to seeing what you build next!

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2026 updates on io.google.
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Increasing app discovery and engagement on Google TV

Posted by Paul Lammertsma, Developer Relations Engineer



With over 300 million monthly active devices across Google TV and Android TV, it’s clear that the living room is a massive, distinct platform for apps to accelerate growth. Today, we’re excited to share Google TV features and developer tools designed to increase the discoverability of your content and prepare your app for future TV experiences.

Drive discovery and engagement with Gemini

Last year, we brought our AI voice assistant, Gemini, to our platform, so that people can easily find what to watch, learn something new on the big screen, and get everyday tasks done with just their voice.

Since launch, we’ve made improvements to how Gemini provides tailored responses to questions. Gemini shares a mix of visuals, videos, and text to help users find what they need, when they need it. For our streaming partners, Gemini is a helpful discovery engine—pulling from your app's metadata to surface your relevant content to viewers.

Declare support for pointing modality

The TV experience that we once knew is changing. Gemini is changing the way we discover and stream content with voice, but how we use the remote is evolving, too.

Pointer remotes bring motion-controlled input to the big screen, unlocking faster user navigation across the Google TV Home page and within content-heavy apps. To ensure your app is ready for this shift and provides a great experience for all users, now is the time to start thinking about pointing input. Here’s how to get started:

1. Adapt your TV app UI Library

You’ll need support for hover states, scrollable containers, and cursor clicks to enable pointer remote interactions for your app on Google TV. While implementation varies by UI stack, Jetpack Compose streamlines this transition, as most core components handle these multi-modal interactions natively out of the box.

  1. Hover state: Every focusable element on your screen (buttons, movie posters, setting toggles) needs a clear visual feedback mechanism for a hover state. This is often subtler than a focus state but critical for feedback.
  2. Scrollable containers: Pointer remotes will also have a small circular touchpad for scrolling. Users can use this touchpad to scroll up or down, or left or right in your app. Your app will need to respond to touch events to scroll.
  3. Cursor clicks: Many TV apps today expect a simple D-pad OKAY button “click.” With a pointer remote, a user may “click” on an element that’s not the D-pad focus state, but is instead from a hovered state (similar to a mouse click).

2. Test pointing interactions with a mouse today

To see how your app handles hover, scroll, and clicks, simply connect a bluetooth mouse or wired mouse to your Google TV. Keep in mind that a mouse has more precise control, since users are closer to the screen and typically rest the mouse in a stable position. Pointer remotes can often be less precise, since users are sometimes 10 feet away from the screen, making rough gestures with the remote from their couch. As a TV designer or developer, you can mitigate this lack of input precision by having larger hover targets for elements.

3. Declare TV app support for pointer remotes on Google Play

Finally, tell Google Play that your TV app is designed to work with a pointer. This ensures that users with pointer remotes will be able to easily find, install, and interact with your app.

Within your AndroidManifest.xml, declare the meta-data tag, android.software.leanback.supports_touch. This tag informs the platform that your TV app “spatially supports touch,” since pointer remotes simulate touch events from a distance.

AndroidManifest.xml

<manifest ...>
    <!-- Signal whether the app is adaptive or built just for TV -->
    <uses-feature android:name="android.software.leanback" android:required="true|false" />

    <!-- Ensure the app can be installed on conventional TVs -->
    <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.touchscreen" android:required="false" />

    <!-- Signal whether the app supports pointer remotes -->
    <meta-data android:name="android.software.leanback.supports_touch" android:value="true|false"/>

    <application ...>
        ...
    </application>
</manifest>

Tips:

  • The android.software.leanback feature declaration indicates that your app supports D-pad navigation and is intended for distribution only on TV devices via Google Play.
  • The new software attribute of android.software.leanback.supports_touch declares that in addition to D-pad, you have ensured that your TV app works well for pointer/cursor experiences via mouse (of today) and pointer remotes (of future).
  • If you haven't already, now is the time to adopt Jetpack Compose. Hover, scroll, and clicks are common input modalities that are supported on various form factors, and building your app with an adaptive UI framework enables code reusability and reduced maintenance.

Onboard the Engage SDK

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.

  • Resumption: Partners can easily display a user's paused video within the 'Continue Watching' row from the Home page.
  • Entitlements: The Engage SDK streamlines entitlement management, which matches app content to user eligibility. Users appreciate this because they can enjoy personalized recommendations without needing to manually update all their subscription details. This allows partners to connect with users across multiple discovery points on Google TV.
  • Recommendations: The Engage SDK even highlights personalized recommendations based on content that users watched inside apps.

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. To get started, head to goo.gle/engage-tv to learn more.

We're excited to see how our latest Gemini experience and developer tools will optimize your discovery and drive user engagement on our platform.

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2026 updates on io.google.
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Android CLI Now Stable 1.0: Accelerate developing for Android using any agent

Posted by Simona Milanovic and Ben Trengrove, Developer Relations Engineers

As Android developers, you have many choices when it comes to the agents, tools, command-line interfaces (CLI), and LLMs you use for app development. Whether you use Gemini in Android Studio, Antigravity 2.0, Antigravity CLI, or third-party agents like Anthropic's Claude Code or OpenAI'sCodex, our mission remains the same: to ensure that high-quality Android development is possible everywhere.

At Google I/O ‘26, we shared the latest leaps forward in agentic development, and showcased some of the newest capabilities of Android CLI—now stable at version 1.0 and ready for all Android developers to use. From new skills to enabling agent access to powerful Android Studio capabilities, we’re giving your agents the right tools to build alongside you.

If you’re already using Android CLI and want to jump into using all the new features, just run android update. Otherwise, read further to learn more about how we’re making the agents you choose be better at building for Android.

Android development unlocked for Antigravity

Google Antigravity now includes an optional bundle of Android resources—including the Android CLI and skills—that you can install. You can either install the bundle during onboarding after installation, or later from the Settings > Customizations > Build With Google Plugins menu.

This provides Antigravity with all the powerful tools and knowledge of Android CLI, enabling it to perform the core tasks necessary for Android app development more easily and efficiently—from creating projects to deploying your app on a new Android virtual device.

You can now easily install Android CLI for use with Google Antigravity 2.0.

Unlocking Android Studio capabilities for any agent

Android CLI provides a lightweight interface for AI Agents to perform tasks and retrieve knowledge about Android development. However, there's benefits to specialization — Android Studio contains over a decade of Android expertise, built to handle even the most complex Android projects. This includes Android Studio's powerful static analysis engine, refactoring tools, dependency management, UI design and rendering libraries, and more. AI Agents can now tap into Android Studio's tools to gain many of these same capabilities.

Your agents can now use Android CLI to access powerful capabilities of Android Studio.

The latest version of Android CLI introduces the new android studio command. This enables the agent of your choice to leverage the deep, contextual capabilities of Android Studio to better understand and perform actions on an open Android project. By running Android Studio alongside your preferred agent with Android CLI, your agent’s tasks can more efficiently navigate the codebase to produce more precise code changes. And, when you use Android CLI to create and iterate on your project, transitioning to Android Studio is much easier, so that you can use the purpose built tools—such as, performance profilers, Compose Previews, and Android Device Streaming—to get that production-grade polish.

When you have a project open in the latest preview version of Android Studio Quail, you (or your agent) can run the following command to check whether Android CLI has a connection established with your open project:

$ android studio check
pid: 32942
version: Android Studio
Projects:
    READY     JetSet /Users/adarshf/AndroidStudioProjects/jetset-main

From there, the agents can use the android studio command to access powerful IDE tools to interact with projects more efficiently. Key commands include:

  • analyze-file: Analyzes a file for errors and warnings using the editor's built-in inspections.
  • find-declaration: Finds the exact definition site of a symbol (class, method, variable, field, constant, or Android resource/color) across the project using semantic resolution.
  • find-usages: Finds all references and declarations of a symbol (class, method, variable, or Android resource) across the entire project using semantic analysis.
  • render-compose-preview: Renders a Jetpack Compose UI Preview and returns a path to the image and UI hierarchy if successful.
  • version-lookup: Get the latest information about which versions for specified app dependencies are available in common repositories, such as the Google Maven repository. By providing a programmatic solution, dependency management is less tedious and much less prone to flakiness.
  • open-file: Opens a file directly in Android Studio. This is useful if the agent wants to direct your attention to view Compose Previews, performance traces, or other specific files in the IDE.

For example, agents can now run the following commands to render a Compose preview for a new layout for your Android app, and then open the previews in Android Studio for you to take advantage of seeing multiple Compose Previews side by side and make AI-assisted edits right from the IDE.

$ android studio find-declaration HotelDetailScreen
$ android studio analyze-file .../JetPacker/feature/detail/src/main/java/com/example/jetset/feature/detail/HotelDetailScreen.kt
$ android studio open-file feature/detail/src/main/java/com/example/jetset/feature/detail/HotelDetailScreen.kt

To learn more about how to use these commands, run android help. And, to make sure your agents understand how to work with this tool, make sure to update the Android CLI skill by running android init.

More ways to get started

To make integrating Android CLI into your environments as seamless as possible, we’re making it available in more ways. You can now download and install Android CLI using more package managers: apt-get, winget, and homebrew. For example, you can run the following to install Android CLI using winget:

winget install -e --id Google.AndroidCLI

We’ve also updated the installation to a user-local directory, by default. You can find the commands for all supported operating systems plus additional download options on the Android CLI page.

Support for Journeys

Journeys are natural language descriptions of core user experiences.

 

(sped up) An agent running a Journey it generated for an app.

Agents can run these journeys using the Android CLI to navigate your app exactly like a user would. This unlocks entirely new ways to test, validate, or collect data across the critical experiences of your app, all driven by natural language and executed by your agent.

Expanding Android skills

To help models better understand and execute specific patterns that follow our best practices, we are continuing to expand our library of Android skills. We’re shipping new skills that make Android development everywhere more capable, efficient, and productive:

  • Display Glasses and Jetpack Compose Glimmer for XR: Provides guidelines for developing projected applications for Android Display Glasses using the Jetpack Compose Glimmer UI toolkit.
  • Migration to CameraX: Helps you migrate legacy Android camera implementations (Camera1 or raw Camera2 APIs) to CameraX.
  • Perfetto SQL: Translates natural language data prompts into Perfetto SQL queries and executes them against a local trace file.
  • Adaptive UI: Instructions to make or update an app's UI so that it adapts to different Android devices
  • Testing setup: Creates a basic testing strategy.
  • Styles: Helps with adoption of the new Jetpack Compose Style API for new components, and supports migration to Styles API. 
  • AppFunctions: Analyzes Android codebases to recommend and implement new AppFunctions, and refines KDoc documentation for Model Context Protocol optimization.

You can add these new skills to your workflow directly from the command line. To help your agents understand and use Android CLI right away, you can initialize your environment and install the base android-cli skill by running:

android init

From there, you can browse and set up your agent workflow by searching for the exact capabilities your agent needs:

android skills list

Once you've found the right skill, install it to your environment by running:

android skills add –skill=<skill-name>

Get started today

To download the stable 1.0 release of the Android CLI, explore the new tools, and browse the complete documentation, head over to d.android.com/tools/agents today!  Also, make sure you update to the latest preview version of Android Studio to unlock the latest features that Android CLI offers. We can't wait to see what you build with Android CLI 1.0 and how these new features supercharge your daily workflows. Join our vibrant community on LinkedIn, Medium, YouTube, or X and  share your feedback.

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2026 updates on io.google.

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Build for the future with the Android XR Developer Catalyst Program — Apply now!

Posted by Android XR Team



The Android XR ecosystem is expanding, and we’re committed to supporting developers who will build its next great experiences. Today, we’re opening applications for the Android XR Developer Catalyst Program, a dedicated initiative to accelerate the development of Android XR apps ready to launch within the next year.

This program is designed to provide the resources, hardware, and grants to help you build and scale innovative experiences across wired XR glasses, like XREAL’s Project Aura, and intelligent eyewear (audio and display glasses). We are especially interested in seeing innovative experiences across media, gaming, productivity, and health, but we welcome any unique use case that helps users expand what's possible.

Why join the catalyst program?

We want to help developers navigate common barriers to entry for XR development by providing:

  • Development Kits: Get early access to hardware development kits for wired XR glasses (XREAL’s Project Aura) and / or intelligent eyewear (audio and display glasses).

  • Technical support: Gain access to specialized technical resources and support forums specifically designed to help you prepare your app for Google Play.

  • Grant Opportunities: Submit a request and you may be eligible to receive a non-recoupable grant to accelerate your development.

Ready to start building?

Applications are open to developers looking to publish apps for the Android XR ecosystem in the next 6-12 months. You can build with Kotlin and the Jetpack XR SDK, or with Unity, Unreal Engine or Godot. If you need a spark of inspiration, you can check out existing XR Experiments and Samples to see how you can use the SDK for everything from spatial music to navigation.

Once you have your concept ready, be sure to submit your application by June 30th by 11:59PM PDT. We can’t wait to see what you build.

Start Your Application

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2026 updates on io.google.

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Adaptive development for the expanding Android ecosystem

Posted Fahd Imtiaz, Senior Product Manager, Adaptive Apps



With the release of Android 17, we are transitioning into an adaptive first development standard. Your users no longer rely on a single form factor; they transition between phones, foldables, tablets, laptops, automotive displays, and immersive XR environments throughout their day.

Now, with over 580 million large screen devices in the hands of users, adaptive is no longer just a technical goal. It’s a massive opportunity to reach highly engaged users. To thrive in this multi-device ecosystem, your app must be resilient, responsive, and ready for virtually any surface.

The multi-device opportunity

The Android device universe is now a multi device reality. Users are buying into entire ecosystems, moving from handhelds to foldables, tablets, and cars. And the data is clear: users with multiple devices often spend more than users with only a phone.

  • Drive higher revenue: Multi-device users spend 9x more on average than phone only users. On foldables, that engagement multiplier can reach 14x. (Source: Google Internal Data, 2026)

  • Capture high-value segments: Large-screen users (tablets, foldables, and Chromebooks) typically spend roughly 5x more than phone-only users.

To help amplify your reach with these users, we've rolled out a new badge in Google Play. Apps meeting adaptive quality standards now earn an "Optimized for large screens" badge, making it easier for users to discover high quality experiences.

Latest in adaptive Android development from Google I/O

Android 17, new Jetpack updates and advanced tools help you build apps that feel native across diverse surfaces, from pocket-sized foldables to Googlebooks.

Adaptive by default: Android 17 updates

In Android 16, we introduced significant changes to orientation and resizability APIs to facilitate adaptive behavior, while providing a temporary opt-out to help you make the transition. Android 17 (API level 37) sets a new quality baseline by removing that developer opt-out for orientation and resizability restrictions on large screen devices (sw > 600 dp). When you target API level 37, your app must be capable of adapting to a variety of display sizes. This helps your app deliver an experience that matches the users’ expectations.

Apps that were previously letterboxed on large screen devices will now be stretched to landscape

Tip: You can start testing these behaviors by enabling the UNIVERSAL_RESIZABLE_BY_DEFAULT flag in App Compatibility Changes under Developer Options under SDK 36.

Your app on even more surfaces

In addition to your mobile app running on large screens devices including foldables, tablets, Chromebooks and XR, we are also expanding the Android surface area for your mobile apps:

  • Connected Displays: Now in stable as of Android 16 QPR3, Connected Displays support enables supported Pixel and Samsung mobile devices to transform into a desktop environment via external display support.

  • Automotive & TV: With the Car Ready Mobile Apps program and enhanced pointer support for Android TV, your adaptive app can now benefit from engagement on the infotainment system and the living room with ease.

Googlebook: Evolving desktop computing

Talking about more surfaces, we’re evolving our work in the desktop space with Googlebook, the next generation of ChromeOS. Built with parts of the Android stack, we are enabling your apps to achieve a "laptop-class" feel with native level performance.

Building with adaptive principles today helps ensure your app is ready for this new generation of high performance hardware.

To help you prepare for this new generation of devices, we’ve released comprehensive new documentation including comprehensive design guidance and developer guidelines. Built on the principles of adaptive, these guidelines offer a playbook for transitioning your mobile apps to offer a premium desktop class experience.

Try out the new Desktop Emulator, available now in the Android Studio Canary to get started today.


Building adaptive layouts with Jetpack Compose

We are now Compose first and Jetpack Compose is our recommended way to build modern, adaptive UIs to help you manage layout complexity efficiently.

  • New layout primitives: We’re introducing Grid and FlexBox layouts, bringing powerful, CSS-inspired capabilities to Compose for both 1D and 2D layouts.

  • Navigation 3: The 1.1 release for compose-navigation3 introduces Scene Decorators, allowing you to wrap your screens with other content, such as bars, rails and dialogs.

  • MediaQuery API: The new experimental MediaQuery API provides observable device UI capabilities, such as window size and pointer precision, that allow you to adapt and optimize your app's UI for the current device configuration.

  • Styles API: Dynamically evolve the visual properties of your app using the new state-based experimental Styles API.

Beyond layouts: non-touch input

Adaptive app quality goes beyond window dimensions, including handling non-touch input paradigms e.g. keyboard, trackpad, mouse, stylus that are primary input methods on large screens.

  • Trackpad support: Compose 1.11 now brings trackpad support on par with mouse, and provides new APIs to automate non-touch input testing including TrackpadInjectionScope and performTrackpadInput.

  • Focus indicators: Enhance accessibility with built-in support for standard focus rings in Compose.


AI-Powered developer tools

Android Studio and Android CLI are evolving to help you architect adaptive apps faster than ever.

  • Android Skills: These modular AI instructions are designed to assist any LLM through complex architectural tasks, including helping you with View-to-Compose migrations, implementing adaptive layouts, Navigation 2 to Navigation 3 transformation, and migrating off of legacy camera libraries to CameraX. Get started with these latest skills on the Android Skills Github repo and via Android CLI.

  • New Project Agent: Available in Android Studio Panda 2, this agent initializes new projects with adaptive best practices by default.


For developers working with cross-platform frameworks, we continue to provide full support for Web, Qt, and Unity. Whether you are building from scratch or modernizing a legacy codebase, these tools are designed to meet your users exactly where they are.

We’re excited to see how you bring these new adaptive capabilities to your apps. By moving to an adaptive first approach, you’re not just reaching more users but you’re delivering the seamless, high quality experiences they expect across the entire Android device landscape.

Get started with adaptive development and start shaping the future of your apps.

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2026 updates on io.google.


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