Almost exactly 15 years since Google introduced Chromebooks and ChromeOS—which ushered in a wave of cheap, functional, web-based laptops that would come to dominate the US education market—the company has announced a new laptop platform called Googlebook. It's built around artificial intelligence and Android, and while it isn't replacing Chromebooks, it could give the company a more meaningful foothold in the premium computer market.
Google announced the platform on The Android Show on YouTube, where it also detailed new features coming in Android 17 and Gemini Intelligence (you can read more about that here). Google is purposefully not sharing the operating system's name yet (it was codenamed Aluminium OS internally); Googlebook is the platform, and Dell, Acer, Asus, HP, and Lenovo have all signed up to produce Googlebooks coming later this fall.
The company says it will share more information later this year, but I spoke with Alexander Kuscher, senior director at Google leading Android tablets and laptops, to glean more details. Kuscher says there's an immense amount of innovation in the Android ecosystem right now, and it translates really well into laptops.
“You want to take advantage of the fact that this ecosystem is innovating so fast that you make sure that laptops are at the tip of that innovation wave—building on top of Android technologies makes that so much easier for us,” he says.
Until now, when Google rolls out a new set of features for Android or its Gemini assistant, it often also announces some of those capabilities for other platforms, like Wear OS smartwatches, Android Auto, or Google Home. Chromebooks were rarely part of that picture because they were developed on a different tech stack and had their own development cycles. However, with Googlebooks, you can expect to see new features that pop up on Android available on a Googlebook laptop, where it makes sense.
Case in point: Create a Widget. This is a new generative AI feature coming in Android 17, allowing users to generate their own widget by speaking naturally with Gemini. You can ask it to make a widget that shows the day's exchange rate if you're traveling, or a custom weather widget that also shows wind speed. This feature will also be available on Googlebooks.
But the highlight feature Google is teasing at the gate is the cursor, which the company calls the “Magic Pointer” on a Googlebook. Built with Google's DeepMind team, it allows you to wiggle your cursor while hovering over an app or image to get contextual suggestions. For example, you can wiggle the cursor at a date in an email, and Gemini will suggest setting up a calendar event. Or select two pictures in the Files app, wiggle, and Gemini will ask if you want to merge them.
The Play Store is where you'll access all of your apps. But you might wonder how Google is getting around the classic Chromebook limitation: In ChromeOS, you can't download desktop-grade apps like on Windows or macOS—you can only install Android apps from the Play Store or use web apps. That's a deal-breaker for people who rely on specific apps that may not have as powerful a web client or Android app.
The answer is adaptive apps. Google has been encouraging app developers to make apps react to the size of the screen for a few years now, and that now translates to encouraging app makers to make desktop versions of their Android apps for Googlebooks. But Kuscher says things will be different from the “constrained” Android app experience on Chromebooks, which were originally built for a web-first era.
“We're building on top of Android technologies—the apps are primary citizens that have access to hardware, have access to the OS at a level that would not be possible otherwise,” Kuscher says.
Instead of these apps simply taking advantage of larger laptop screens, the desktop-grade versions could offer different capabilities. And it's not just about translating what already exists on Windows or Mac and porting it over. Kuscher says it's about rethinking what it means to build an app experience. “This is a native platform on Android technologies, and with that, you will see many, many apps actually be the desktop version, including things like Chrome,” Kuscher says.
He's a little shy of explicitly calling the operating system “Android,” and instead says, “Android and all the technologies surrounding Android are a big part of it.” What makes Googlebooks its own platform—and different from the Android desktop mode that's enabled when you plug in select phones into external monitors—is what Google has built around or included in the platform, like how to deliver updates, how the hardware security chip is tied into the software, and the optimized experience of the larger screen.
“It's an experience that takes Android technology as part of it, but it's not the only bit that feeds into it,” Kuscher says. “A good example is the Magic Pointer, right? Like, that's not an Android desktop feature, that's a Googlebook feature.”
Kuscher wouldn't share any details on hardware specs, but Googlebooks will sit at the more premium end of the laptop market, with Google teasing a featherweight design and “premium craftsmanship and materials.” The manufacturers Google is working with will have a “spectrum of offerings,” and the platform supports both ARM and x86 architectures.
Googlebooks will be immediately identifiable by the glowbar, a glowing LED strip that shows off the classic Google colors—a not-so-subtle nod to the lightbar on the original Google Chromebook Pixel. Kuscher says the team didn't want to plaster logos or brand names over the laptop, but a glowbar helps make the machine feel high-end.
“It's a brand element that presents you as a unified category,” Kuscher says. “Plus, we were able to make it something that is functional—it doesn't just glow the Google colors. It has a few other functions and Easter eggs that make it a bit more fun and functional. Like, it's actually deliberate that this is facing away from you when you open the laptop.”
Googlebooks are also the “best device for Android users,” the company says. By this, Google means anyone with an Android phone will be able to open their phone apps on the laptop. If you're working on your phone, you can pick up where you left off on the laptop, and even the Googlebook Files app can search for and open documents and images stored on the phone. What if you have an iPhone but use a Googlebook? Kuscher says the company is still building a cross-device experience, but platform limitations will restrict some features. Android phones will have a deeper level of integration.
In one of the teaser images, you can see a glimpse of the keyboard, and there's a G icon—I asked Kuscher if it opens Gemini or Google Search, and he said it doesn't just open Google Search, but he said he will save the reveal for later. I also asked if Google will make its own Googlebooks with its Pixel hardware division, just like the company once did with Chromebooks. “I'm not part of the Pixel team, unfortunately,” Kuscher says with a smirk. “You'll have to ask them.” The Pixel team declined to comment.
As for Chromebooks, well, they aren't going away. Kuscher says Google is continuing to invest in Chromebooks—there are new models on the way, and existing devices will continue to get updates, some for as long as 10 years.
“We feel pretty committed to those users because a lot of them are in education, institutions, and businesses around the globe,” Kuscher says. “We feel a strong responsibility for that. Googlebooks are a different kind of laptop.”
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