Stephen Schenck / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google just published a mysterious new ‘COSMO’ app to the Play Store.
- COSMO is equipped with a Gemini Nano model in addition to server-side AI, and feels designed for developmental purposes.
- The app listing is quite rough and may suggest this was published prematurely.
Update, May 1, 2026 (2:31 PM ET): Well, we may have been closer to the mark than we realized with that “not quite ready for prime time” observation, because Google just pulled COSMO’s Play Store listing. We can still view the page when logged in with accounts that have already installed COSMO, but everyone else is getting a “not found” message.
Original article, May 1, 2026 (1:44 PM ET): Google isn’t exactly shy about giving us access to its latest AI experiments. When it’s not deploying updated Gemini models for us to try out, it’s testing new AI-powered features in apps like YouTube. This week, though, we’re getting something a little bit different, as Google introduces a new Android app to the Play Store: COSMO.
Don’t want to miss the best from Android Authority?
The new app, arriving with the package name com.google.research.air.cosmo, is described by Google as “an experimental AI assistant application for Android devices” (via 9to5Google). The company goes on to explain:
COSMO brings the power of artificial intelligence directly onto your device. From organizing your day to answering complex questions, COSMO works behind the scenes to simplify your life.
That… doesn’t really do much to differentiate it from Google’s main Gemini app — so what exactly is the point of COSMO? For now, this appears to be a testbed of sorts, though exactly for whom and what isn’t yet clear.
Looking through app settings, COSMO reveals it can function with a local Gemini Nano model, a remote “PI” server, or a hybrid mode that switches between the two as available. COSMO is built to tap into Android’s AccessibilityService API to access your screen, but in our testing this doesn’t appear to be fully working just yet.
COSMO is equipped with quite a few specific AI skills, though not all of them are enabled by default.
Interacting with COSMO’s assistant works as expected, but it’s understandably quite a bit rougher around the edges than the full Gemini app. Really, the overall impression we’re getting here is that this is an app that’s not quite ready for prime time — even the Play Store listing is poorly executed, with screenshots squished into incorrect aspect ratios:
None of this is very satisfying, we know, but really we’ve just got more questions than answers right now. We’ll keep digging around to see if there’s anything interesting the app is ready to reveal to us, and wait for Google to announce its new tool — hopefully clearing up a lot of these unknowns.
Thank you for being part of our community. Read our Comment Policy before posting.
