Google's Aluminium OS accidentally leaks, showing ChromeOS-Android fusion in action for the first time

[Daniel Sims]

Recap: Reports that Google plans to build a new PC operating system have circulated since 2024, and the company confirmed these ambitions late last year. However, concrete details have remained scarce until this week, when Google's issue tracker inadvertently leaked a couple of brief clips of the OS, codenamed Aluminium.

The bug report has since become unavailable to the public, but 9to5Google managed to copy it and save the clips. The footage, totaling around two and a half minutes, doesn't reveal much, but Aluminium certainly resembles the fusion of ChromeOS and Android that Google described last September.

Android-style status icons for Wi-Fi, battery, Gemini, the date, and the recording interface used to make the clips are visible on the top of the screen, but they appear larger than on Android smartphones and tablets. Google Chrome mostly mirrors the Android version, though buttons for various critical functions resemble the ChromeOS version, and two windows appear in split-screen view.

In one clip, the user visits a desktop version of the Google Play Store and updates a development build of Chrome. A taskbar and a modified mouse cursor are also visible.

Meanwhile, the bug report includes a version number for ALOS – short for Aluminium OS – and notes that the footage was recorded on an HP Elite Dragonfly 13.5 Chromebook. The left Chrome window also displays build numbers for Android 16.

Google's plans to merge the ChromeOS and Android platforms in a desktop environment first emerged in a November 2024 report. At the Snapdragon Summit the following September, Sameer Samat, Google's head of Android ecosystem, confirmed that the company is developing an AI-centric operating system based on Android and ChromeOS.

More details emerged in a November 2025 job listing from Google's Taiwan office. The description indicated that the company plans for Aluminium to replace ChromeOS after all of its functionality is migrated.

The new operating system is intended for tablets, Chromebooks, 2-in-1s, and desktops. Testing is currently underway on devices with MediaTek Kompanio 520 and Intel Alder Lake CPUs (the HP Elite Dragonfly uses an Alder Lake processor). Google's generative AI toolchain, Gemini, will play a central role for Aluminium.

While the precise launch window remains unclear, Samat confirmed that Google plans to release the OS sometime this year.

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Google's Aluminium OS accidentally leaks, showing ChromeOS-Android fusion in action for the first time

 

[Str8Shot]

Another incoming Windows clone with its cloud-based OS, because Windows is already such an excellent example of an OS. /s

 

[Dreadcthulhu]

I am not a fan of that default UI; having two task bars is just silly when they could simply move the stuff on the bottom task bar to the left instead of the center position (something from Win 11 that everyone I know hates anyways) and put the stuff on the top bar in the bottom right corner. I wonder if the UI will be customizable enough to fix it. And of course there is the question on how well this OS will play with non-Google store applications. And finally, really what is this "Aluminum" OS going to do that existing ChromeOS machines can't? Aside from having more AI buzzwords shoved in.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

This would have been a lot more exciting a decade ago before Google earned the ire of pretty much everyone.

I am not a fan of that default UI; having two task bars is just silly when they could simply move the stuff on the bottom task bar to the left instead of the center position (something from Win 11 that everyone I know hates anyways) and put the stuff on the top bar in the bottom right corner. I wonder if the UI will be customizable enough to fix it. And of course there is the question on how well this OS will play with non-Google store applications. And finally, really what is this "Aluminum" OS going to do that existing ChromeOS machines can't? Aside from having more AI buzzwords shoved in.

Have a proper framework for installing standalone applications? Seems like a pretty easy answer, chromeOS sucks balls at doing anything beyond what is done in a typical browser.

 

[Axeia]

Well, that'll be an easy one for the Linux desktop environments to make a look-a-like version in case anyone actually likes that design.

 

[airbornex]

The most Google part of this is that the first real look comes from an issue tracker accident. Nothing launches with fanfare anymore, it’s always some random dev clip that escapes before the PR machine is ready.

Gemini being central to the OS is the "interesting" wildcard. If this turns into Android-on-desktop plus an AI assistant glued into every workflow, it could either be genuinely useful… or it could be ChromeOS 2.0 with more AI popups than anyone asked for.

 

[mjuice7]

Accidentally leaked? yeah, right!

 

[Axiarus]

No thanks, ill stick with Linux.