Tech giant, Google has announced a new native Android app creation capabilities in its web-based Google AI Studio. The new app aims to shrink a process that takes weeks of setup and coding down to minutes.
The company made the announcement at At the Google I/O 2026 in Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View, California, last Tuesday.
According to the company, consumers will be able to use Gemini AI to find the apps they need, both on the Play Store and the web, expanding opportunities for developers to have their apps discovered.
Google noted that the new capabilities could make sense for anyone from a seasoned developer looking to prototype a new app quickly to a first-time creator.
With its new web-based app building tools, Google is turning up the heat on competing platforms like Cursor, Replit, Lovable, and Claude Code, while opening new up Android development to everyday people with no coding background. The move also builds on what Google had already started with Gemini-powered coding inside the desktop version of Android Studio, pushing that vision further than ever before.
The apps are built with the Kotlin programming language using Google’s Jetpack Compose toolkit and with support integration with hardware sensors like GPS, Bluetooth, and NFC, the company says. However, the resulting creations, for now, are only meant to be used personally, as publishing for family and friends is still on the roadmap.
The company suggests the technology could be used for the creation of personal utilities and simple social apps, hardware-enabled experiences, or AI-powered experiences.
For now, would-be app developers can use the embedded Android Emulator directly in a web browser to preview and interact with the app as it’s being built. Users can then install the app on their Android phone over a USB cable connected to their computer, using the integrated Android Debug Bridge (adb).
For those looking to take their project further, AI Studio can automatically create the app record, package the bundle, and upload it to an internal testing track in Google Play Console for developers. This allows users to continue to iterate on their app while updating on their devices along the way.
Those who want to take the next steps to publishing the app more publicly can hand off this version of the project to Android Studio by downloading a zip file and exporting it directly to GitHub. In time, Google plans to allow creators to publish their apps for use by family and friends and will add support for Firebase integrations (Firestore, Firebase Auth, Firebase App Check, and other tooling).
In doing so, the company is imagining an Android app ecosystem where users find apps from among their own network of friends, not just the Play Store.
