We have our first real leak of Google’s “Aluminium” project running on a Chromebook

Back in September, we caught the first scent of a massive shift happening behind the scenes at Google. I found evidence that developers were testing a full Android desktop experience on “Brya” Chromebooks, and at the time, we weren’t quite sure what to make of it. Fast forward to today, and the cat is officially out of the bag.

Thanks to an accidental leak in a Google bug report on the Chromium Issue Tracker (via 9to5 Google), we now have our first visual confirmation of “Aluminium OS” (ALOS)—the Android 16-based desktop interface that looks set to eventually merge the best of ChromeOS and Android into a single, unified platform.

The “Brya” connection confirmed

Not going to lie, one of the more satisfying parts of this leak is the fact that the device used in the leaked screen recordings was an HP Elite Dragonfly 13.5 Chromebook. For those keeping score at home, that is a “Brya” (Redrix) board—the exact hardware family we identified months ago as the testing ground for this new era.

The leaked build (ZL1A.260119.001.A1) is explicitly identified as Android 16. It confirms that Google isn’t just experimenting with a desktop mode and that work is well underway on this new ground-up operating system using existing Chromebook hardware as the foundation.

A UI that bridges the gap

The leaked footage shows a UI that looks like a pretty fantastic merge of Android 16 and ChromeOS. As a long-time Chromebook users, it’s familiar, yet distinctly different from the ChromeOS I’ve used for a decade. Here are a few of the things that stand out:

• The Status Bar: It’s taller and more optimized for a large display. It features a stackable time and date, the new Android 16 “M3E” battery and Wi-Fi icons, a dedicated Gemini icon, and a notification bell.
• The Taskbar: While it looks similar to the current Android tablet taskbar, the “Start” button has moved toward the center, aligning with the desktop mode we’ve seen in early Android 16 developer builds, rather than the bottom-left corner placement of ChromeOS.
• Windowing and Multitasking: The system features a windowing UI nearly identical to ChromeOS, complete with minimize, fullscreen, and close buttons. We also see 50/50 split-screen multitasking handling desktop-class workloads with ease.

Chrome on Android with Extensions

One of the most significant features spotted in the leak is the Google Chrome browser. While it is technically the Android version of Chrome, it features something the mobile app has lacked for years: a dedicated Extensions button. This has long been the missing link for Android as a productivity platform. By bringing desktop-class Chrome extensions to the Android-based Aluminium OS, Google is removing the final barrier that kept Chromebooks and Android tablets in separate categories.

Seeing it all up and running on a “Brya” device – hardware that many of you likely already have on your desks – suggests that this upcoming transition could be closer than we thought. Given that the build is labeled as Android 16, we might be looking at a much shorter timeline than anyone anticipated.