TL;DR
- At the Snapdragon Summit, Google’s Rick Osterloh hinted that the company is working on a “common technical foundation” to bring Android and AI features to PCs.
- We previously reported that Google may be planning to merge Chrome OS and Android, unifying the two operating systems.
- This could pave the way for future Chromebooks and even a Pixel Laptop powered by Android.
Google may have just dropped its clearest hint yet that Android will soon power more than phones and tablets. At today’s Snapdragon Summit kickoff, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon and Google’s SVP of Devices and Services Rick Osterloh discussed a new joint project that will directly impact personal computing.
“In the past, we’ve always had very different systems between what we are building on PCs and what we are building on smartphones,” Osterloh said on stage. “We’ve embarked on a project to combine that. We are building together a common technical foundation for our products on PCs and desktop computing systems.”
Osterloh touched upon Google’s efforts to bring its AI stack to PCs. “This is another way we can leverage all of the great work we’re doing together on our AI stack, our full stack, bringing Gemini models, bringing the assistant, bringing all of our applications and developer community into the PC domain. And I think this is another way in which Android is gonna be able to serve everyone in every computing category.”
Amon responded to this statement with clear excitement, saying, “I’ve seen it, it is incredible. It delivers on the vision of convergence of mobile and PC. I cannot wait to have one.”
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In 2024, we reported that Google is working on a multi-year project to merge Chrome OS and Android, effectively unifying its current operating system strategy. Earlier this year, a Google exec explicitly confirmed that the company is combining Chrome OS and Android. The conversation between Amon and Osterloh is obviously referring to that ongoing project. The fact that Google is now comfortable talking more about this in public suggests the company may be closer to creating a version of Android that works seamlessly across smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
Google is already evolving Android for bigger screens, with features like a full desktop mode, better window management, enhanced support for external monitors, and apps that can more easily adapt to different display sizes.
While Google hasn’t detailed any plans, we believe the company wants future Chromebooks, and potentially its rumored Pixel Laptop, to ship with Android instead of Chrome OS. When Amon said, “I cannot wait to have one,” it certainly felt like he was talking about an unannounced product. It’s all very exciting, and we can’t wait to find out more.
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