We're expanding our tools to help you understand how content was created and edited across the web.
We're introducing new tools to take your ideas from a prompt to a production-ready application, including updates to Google Antigravity, an enhanced Gemini API and nativ…
Gemini for Science is a new collection of science tools and experiments to expand the scale and precision of scientific exploration.
At Google I/O 2026, we introduced an intelligent cart that corrals everything you're shopping, expansions to UCP, tech to power agents that buy for you and more.
We’re connecting Project Genie with nearly 20 years of Google Street View imagery so you can create new worlds anchored in reality.
Posted by Paul Feng, VP, Google Play Eng, Product, UX
At Google Play, we’re passionate about helping people connect with the experiences they’ll love, while empowering developers like you to turn great ideas into lasting business success.
At this year’s Google I/O, we talked about our evolving business model that offers more choice and new ways for your apps and content to be discovered on and off the store. We also unveiled advanced tools and insights that will help scale your business with less complexity.
Your apps and the incredible worlds you build are no longer just a single destination, but connected experiences that reach users across surfaces and devices. To help you meet users where they are, Google Play continues to evolve into a content-forward destination that delivers immersive and personalized experiences on the store, across their devices, and directly within your apps and games.
We're unlocking new opportunities for your apps and content to be discovered across the wider Android ecosystem.
Boost re-engagement by integrating with Engage SDK today. If your app is already integrated, no further action is required to benefit from these updates.
We’re also optimizing the Play Store to help grow your audience with engaging content formats and a more intelligent search experience, to make it easier than ever for users to find and connect with your app.
Once players launch your title, the real challenge is keeping them in the action. Play Games Sidekick provides an in-game overlay that gives players instant access to gaming information—like AI-generated Game Tips, rewards, and achievements — driving higher engagement while keeping players immersed. Sidekick has already debuted in over 100+ titles, and we’re building on this momentum with:
We’re streamlining your day-to-day tasks while providing more comprehensive reporting to help you capture more growth opportunities.
We’re using Gemini models to handle the heavy lifting of localizing your store content and managing your catalog.
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New agentic capabilities in Play Console will make managing your catalog seamless.We’re building tools to maximize your revenue at every stage—with zero developer work required. When a user decides to buy, our platform helps ensure that the transaction completes at the point of conversion, renewal, and retention.
We’re providing more data and more AI-powered insights to help you understand your performance and ROI on Play.
Get instant answers and recommendations for optimizing your business.In addition to making it easier and faster to publish safer apps, we’re also making it easier to secure your app’s revenue and reputation.
Our latest updates reinforce our commitment to deliver the highest return on your team’s investment, by expanding your reach beyond the store, simplifying your day-to-day operations, and helping you better safeguard your success. We’re excited to see you use these new capabilities to create even more impactful experiences. Thank you for being a part of the Google Play community.
Today we're excited to launch Developer Preview 4 of the Android XR SDK, continuing our focus on unifying cross-device development for headsets, wired XR glasses, and intelligent eyewear. To keep our platform intuitive, we are adopting more descriptive naming for our form factors, where AI glasses are now audio glasses and display AI glasses are now display glasses, with these changes appearing in our documentation starting today.
This release is packed with updates that help you build incredible experiences for XR devices, enable deeper immersive experiences on XR headsets, and streamline the path for creating augmented experiences on audio and display glasses. Also, our core libraries—including XR Runtime, Jetpack SceneCore, and ARCore for Jetpack XR— will be officially moving to Beta soon!
To give you early access to hardware and resources for building immersive and augmented experiences on upcoming devices—like display and audio glasses and XREAL’s Project Aura — we’re announcing the Android XR Developer Catalyst Program. Learn more and start your application today.
Starting out with our libraries for augmented experiences, Developer Preview 4 introduces new APIs that help you create and test your apps.
Jetpack Projected: Device Availability and ProjectedTestRule APIsThe Jetpack Projected library helps bridge app experiences from the phone to the user's field of view. We've added the Device Availability API, which consolidates wear state and connectivity signals into standard Android Lifecycle.State values. This lets you adjust your applications behavior based on whether the device is worn.
val xrDevice = XrDevice.getCurrentDevice(projectedContext)
// Observe the device lifecycle flow
xrDevice.getLifecycle().currentStateFlow
.collect { state ->
when (state) {
Lifecycle.State.STARTED -> { /* Device is available (worn) */ }
Lifecycle.State.CREATED -> { /* Device is unavailable (not worn) */ }
Lifecycle.State.DESTROYED -> { /* Device is DISCONNECTED */ }
}
}
To simplify testing, the new ProjectedTestRule API in the projected-testing artifact automates the setup of projected test environments. This helps you write clean, reliable unit tests without the boilerplate code.
// from the 'androidx.xr.projected:projected-testing:1.0.0-alpha07' artifact
@get:Rule
val projectedTestRule = ProjectedTestRule()
@Test
fun testProjectedContextInitialization() {
// by default, ProjectedTestRule automatically creates and connects
// a projected device before each test
val projectedContext = ProjectedContext.createProjectedDeviceContext(context)
// assert the projected context is successfully initialized
assertThat(projectedContext).isNotNull()
}
Jetpack Compose Glimmer: Google Sans Flex and new components
Our UI library for display glasses, Jetpack Compose Glimmer, now includes Google Sans Flex for improved legibility on optical see-through displays. We’ve also added several interactive components:
If you're looking to build fully immersive experiences for XR Headsets and wired XR Glasses, we have several big updates.
Beta Transition & Modern ArchitectureXR Runtime, Jetpack SceneCore, and the ARCore for Jetpack XR perception features (Depth Maps, Eye/Hand Tracking, Hit Testing, and Spatial Anchors) will soon move to Beta, so we’ve streamlined the Jetpack XR APIs. We've removed legacy Guava and RxJava3 packages in favor of a modern, Kotlin-first architecture.
Jetpack SceneCore: glTF and Custom MeshesWe're expanding 3D model capabilities by adding the ability to fine tune 3D models and access specific nodes with a 3D model. Using GltfModelNode, you can modify properties like pose, materials, and textures, and even run animations for specific nodes.
// Create a new PBR material
pbrMaterial = KhronosPbrMaterial.create(
session = xrSession,
alphaMode = AlphaMode.OPAQUE
)
// Load a texture.
val texture = Texture.create(
session = xrSession,
path = Path("textures/texture_name.png")
)
// Apply the texture and configure occlusion
pbrMaterial.setOcclusionTexture(
texture = texture,
strength = 0.5f
)
// Access the hierarchy of nodes
val entityNodes = entity.nodes
// Find the specific node
val myEntityNode = entityNodes.find { it.name == "node_name" }
// Apply the PBR material override
myEntityNode?.setMaterialOverride(
material = newMaterial
)
// Create the meshval roadMesh =
CustomMesh.BuilderFromMeshData(session, roadVertexLayout)
.addVertexData(ByteBufferRegion(roadDataBuffer, 0, vertexDataSize))
.setIndexData(ByteBufferRegion(roadDataBuffer, vertexDataSize, indexDataSize))
.setTopology(MeshSubsetTopology.TRIANGLES)
.build()
// Define the material
val roadMaterial = KhronosPbrMaterial.create(session, AlphaMode.OPAQUE)
// Instantiate the entity using the custom mesh and material
val roadEntity =
MeshEntity.create(
session,
roadMesh,
listOf(roadMaterial),
pose = roadPose,
)
We now have native glTF support directly in Compose for XR with SpatialGltfModel. Use this along with SpatialGltfModelState to access nodes and animations in the glTF model, or use them to add textures and materials to your 3D models.
val myGltfModelState = rememberSpatialGltfModelState(
source = SpatialGltfModelSource.fromPath(
Paths.get("models/my_animated_model.glb")
)
)
val myGltfAnimation =
myGltfModelState.animations.find { it.name == "animation_name" }
DisposableEffect(myGltfAnimation) {
myGltfAnimation?.loop()
onDispose {
myGltfAnimation?.stop()
}
}
SpatialGltfModel(state = myGltfModelState, modifier = modifier)
We’re also providing an early preview of the Geospatial API for wired XR Glasses in ARCore for Jetpack XR. This update enables high-precision anchoring of digital content tied to real-world locations in over 87 countries.
By combining ARCore’s Visual Positioning System (VPS) with the reasoning and audio capabilities of the Gemini Live API, you can create contextually aware experiences that understand both the location and position of your user. Imagine building an immersive, AI-guided walking tour that provides real-time audio descriptions of nearby places, seamlessly blending digital information with the physical environment.
It's an amazing time to develop for Android XR. With the Jetpack XR SDK moving to Beta soon and a robust set of new tools at your fingertips, explore each of the following areas to get your app's experiences ready for XR!
Read the documentation, explore the samples, and check out the XR experimentsHead to the official Android Developer site for full technical guides, API reference, and instructions on setting up the new emulator. Get inspired with our samples and experiments. See how we've used these APIs to build immersive spatial layouts, load 3D models, explore spatial audio, and more!
We've added official support for Unreal Engine and Godot, and we've launched two new tools to accelerate development for Android XR with Unity and the Android XR Interaction Framework. And, based on your feedback, we are introducing the Android XR Engine Hub to allow you to run your experiences directly from your preferred engine,
Don’t miss your chance to build for the latest Android XR hardware. Apply today for the opportunity to gain access to pre-release hardware, including our audio and display glasses prototype and XREAL’s Project Aura.
We look forward to seeing the amazing XR experiences you build as we move toward the launch of more Android XR devices later this year!
Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2026 updates on io.google.
android.widget package) to be in maintenance mode. We have no plans to deprecate or remove View components and will continue to support them with critical bug fixes, but they will receive no new features.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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 ModeYou 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!
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!
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.
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.
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!
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 frameworkAndroid 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.
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.
Upload App Bundle to Google Play
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.
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?"
Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2026 updates on io.google.
