The head of Google’s Android division says the company plans to merge its mobile operating system with ChromeOS, the software that currently runs on Google Chromebooks.
Samir Samat, president of the Android ecosystem at Google, told TechRadar that “we are going to combine Chrome OS and Android into a single platform.” Samat, who is responsible for implementing Android on mobile, wearables, XR, TVs, and cars, added that he is “curious about how people use their laptops these days,” suggesting that he may be adding a new string to his bow.
This comment is the closest we’ve come to official confirmation of the changes, which have been rumored for months. In November 2024, Android Authority reported that Google was “bringing ChromeOS to Android” in order to compete with the iPad. This process may have already begun, as Google itself announced last June that ChromeOS would now “be developed on a significant portion of the Android stack.” Many Android apps can already run on Chromebooks.
Meanwhile, Android is getting a little closer to ChromeOS this year with new features including a desktop mode, resizable windows, and improved support for external displays.
Combining the two operating systems under one roof makes a lot of sense on paper, allowing Google to speed up feature development and work on improving functionality on tablets, where both operating systems lag behind Apple’s iPadOS. Again, this has been true for some time – the merger of the two platforms was reported ten years ago in 2015, and two years before that, The Verge wrote that “it makes sense to merge them together.” This is a change that has been long overdue, but it means that it may not happen soon.
