Google to merge Android and ChromeOS in 2026, because AI (www.theregister.com)

Google announced at Qualcomm’s Summit that it will merge ChromeOS into Android with the combined platform shipping in 2026 — Android will become the underlying codebase for laptops. Sameer Samat, Google’s Android president, framed the move as an AI-first play: re-baselining ChromeOS on Android lets Google push Gemini services, system-level AI features and XR capabilities across phones, tablets and laptops more quickly and consistently. Qualcomm is positioned as a hardware partner, adapting smartphone SoCs (and ensuring its laptop chips handle Android) so OEMs can run the unified stack on a range of form factors. For the AI/ML community this consolidation matters because it reduces platform fragmentation and widens the surface for on-device AI: developers can target a single Android stack for mobile, tablet and laptop experiences, and Google can optimize Gemini inference and other ML services at the OS level. The move leverages Android’s tablet success and could accelerate hardware/software co-design for AI and XR (including ARM-based silicon and NPU support). Chromebooks aren’t disappearing — the laptop category remains — but expect faster rollout of Google’s AI features and a shift in how models and ML runtimes are packaged and delivered across Google-powered devices.