It’s never fun to be in last place. Google has been coasting along with its Android tablets and Chromebooks for years, playing second fiddle to the bigger players in the game.
But the company has a new card up its sleeve: the upcoming merger of its two platforms into something entirely new. Word on the street is that it’s called Aluminium OS, and it’s coming sooner than you might think.
What Is Aluminium OS?
Ever since the failed launch of the Pixel Slate back in 2018, which was Google’s first attempt at integrating ChromeOS and Android, onlookers have been wondering what the future of these platforms would be. Reports about a new desktop operating system have been mucking around for years, something that blends ChromeOS with Android.
Google talked about interoperability improvements between ChromeOS and Android at Google I/O 2025. In the past decade, Google has made small moves toward integrating these two operating systems, but it has been incremental, starting with bringing Android apps to Chromebooks, and then with smaller features that make them feel like a single ecosystem of products. It’s not dissimilar to Apple’s approach. So far, both companies have resisted completely unifying mobile and desktop computing, and Apple has denied plans to merge macOS and iPadOS.
More recently, at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit in September, Google confirmed that ChromeOS and Android will merge; Google’s hardware chief, Rick Osterloh, took to the stage to provide some details. He referred to the operating system as “bringing Android to the PC market” and confirmed a partnership with Qualcomm on this new platform. It’s a fitting partner, considering the chipmaker’s experience in powering phones, tablets, and laptops. Later during the conference, Google’s Sameer Samat, president of the Android ecosystem, reportedly said that Google has “always had very different systems between what we’re building on PCs and what we’re building on smartphones. We’ve embarked on a project to combine that.”
The Google execs confirmed this venture would launch sometime in 2026. Google I/O 2026 seems an obvious choice, but we’ll have to wait and see.
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