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?

Rick Osterloh, Google’s senior vice president of devices and services.

Courtesy of Drew Angerer/Getty Images

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.

Photograph: Luke Larsen

The most detailed revelation about Google’s new operating system came in a job listing for a role described as a “senior product manager in Android, laptop, and tablets.” The alleged listing goes on to confirm a number of interesting details about what’s coming. First, there’s the name Aluminium, which bears resemblance to Chromium, the code base behind both the Chrome browser and operating system.

Secondly, the listing treats us to a list of device types, including laptops, detachables, tablets, and boxes (likely Mini PCs). They also include three tiers of product, including “AL Entry, AL Mass Premium, and AL Premium.” The listing describes Aluminium as explicitly “Android-based” and focused on “Premium devices and experiences.” This shows how sweeping Google’s plans for Aluminium are, and the company’s intention to break further into the premium market—something Chromebooks have long struggled with. The Chromebook Plus program that launched in 2023 was an attempt at fixing this, but even the best models still cost under $800.

Lastly, the listing gives us a glimpse into the relationship between Chromebooks and Aluminium devices. The language of the job implies that Chromebooks and Aluminium devices will exist side by side, with the task of transitioning ChromeOS to Aluminium. Android Authority suggests that Google is already testing Aluminium OS on current hardware, meaning it may be possible for existing Chromebooks to upgrade to the new software.

What We Still Don’t Know

Courtesy of Google

It’s not currently known what Google will publicly name the operating system, but the job listing refers to it as “Android Desktop” or “Aluminium ChromeOS" internally. Google may keep the “Chrome” brand for marketing purposes, though it’s anyone’s guess at the moment.

The main thing we don’t know is how Aluminium OS will differ from the existing forms of Android or ChromeOS. We don’t know what the interface and capabilities will be like. We don’t know the extent to which it will feel like a conventional desktop operating system, which has been defined largely by macOS and Windows.

One clue we have is that Google has described it as being “built with artificial intelligence at the core.” Here’s what Osterloh had to say about how this could work at the Snapdragon Summit: “We are building together a common technical foundation for our products on PCs and desktop computing systems. 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."

Microsoft is in its own transition, orienting all of Windows more toward its Copilot AI assistant, including how the user interface looks and feels. With its massive investment in Gemini, it’s hard to imagine that Google wouldn’t plan to put its own AI features front and center in a new way.

This new operating system is designed to compete directly with the iPad. It may be that this implementation of Android will be much less restricted than ChromeOS, allowing for an enlarged and extended version of Android, even beyond what the tablet version currently offers. That’s the only way it’ll be able to compete. After all, Apple has been taking similar steps within its own portfolio. Despite its promises to never merge its two platforms, there’s more overlap than ever. This year, iPadOS has grown significantly more similar to macOS, bringing proper windowing to the platform for the first time. On the Mac side, meanwhile, rumor has it that a touchscreen may finally be coming to the MacBook Pro in 2027.

Regardless of what Apple does, it’ll be interesting to see if Google’s solution can offer a compelling evolution of both Android and Chromebooks and provide real competition to the iPad—and maybe even the MacBook.