Google closes one era and opens another. Chromebooks exit the stage, Googlebooks enter: a new category of premium laptops previewed at The Android Show and confirmed on the I/O 2026 stage. Five industrial partners confirmed — Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo — release planned for fall.
Aluminium OS, not Android
The operating system is called Aluminium OS. It's Android 17 rebuilt for the desktop: new window manager, native multitasking, Gemini integrated at OS level. The entire Google Play catalog runs natively, closing the compatibility compromises that limited Android on Chromebooks for years.
Magic Pointer and Create My Widget
The most interesting feature is Magic Pointer: the mouse cursor becomes an AI agent that can perform actions on screen on your behalf. It's — essentially — Gemini Spark turned into a pointer. Googlebooks also run Create My Widget, the same generative widget system seen on Android 17.
Streaming from smartphone
A Googlebook can stream apps from the paired phone, on the Apple Continuity model. It's Google's first attempt to propose a true cross-device ecosystem that works as expected.
What it means
The bet is simple: the browser-OS was no longer enough. ChromeOS was born in a world where work happened in the browser, and now work happens in AI agents that reason across apps. Aluminium OS is Google's answer: a system built to host agents, not just render tabs. Pricing wasn't announced — Google talks about "premium hardware," which with the partners involved suggests well above the $500 of current Chromebooks.