- Android Studio Rabbit 2 adds “Bring Your Own Agent,” letting developers run 40+ coding agents, including Claude and Codex, inside the IDE.
- Google says its Android CLI tool cut UI-task time 77% and token usage up to 3x in internal tests.
- A new alpha Agentic API powered by Gemini Nano 4 lets apps run agent functions locally on-device.
- Google and XREAL unveiled the $1,099 XREAL AURA smart glasses, running Android XR with built-in Gemini.
What Happened
Google used this year’s Android Dev Summit to center its developer tools on AI agents. The centerpiece, “Bring Your Own Agent” in Android Studio Rabbit 2, uses the open Agent Client Protocol to let developers run 40+ coding agents — including Claude Agent, OpenAI’s Codex, and Google’s own Antigravity — inside the IDE with access to project structure, the emulator, and Logcat.
Why It Matters
Google is betting that owning the agent-neutral development environment matters more than winning the coding-agent race outright. Welcoming rival agents into Android Studio, rather than restricting developers to Gemini-based tools, keeps Google’s platform central even if a competitor’s agent wins developer preference.
Technical Details
New terminal tooling lets agents render Compose UI previews without booting an emulator, cutting UI-task time by 77% and token usage up to three times in Google’s internal testing. An alpha Agentic API built on Gemini Nano 4 runs inside ML Kit for on-device agent orchestration, while a beta AppFunctions API, built on the Model Context Protocol, lets apps expose functions to local or system-wide agents.
Who’s Affected
Developers get a vendor-neutral agent marketplace instead of being locked into Google’s own tooling. Consumer integration runs through the new Connected Apps Platform, which Google says already has 50+ partner integrations, including Adobe and Peloton, live in the Gemini app. Google also partnered with XREAL on the AURA smart glasses, wired glasses under 95 grams that project up to five virtual app windows and use Gemini to read the wearer’s surroundings.
What’s Next
The Connected Apps Platform integrations are set to expand from the Gemini app into web search “in the coming weeks.” XREAL AURA ships in the US, Canada, and South Korea starting mid-November, which will be the first real test of whether Android XR hardware finds a consumer audience.
Source: The Decoder, Oct 28, 2026
Related: EU pressure that forced Google to open Android to rival AI assistants and Google’s earlier move giving AI agents full Android development capabilities.
