(Credit: Google)
Google’s AI news at Google I/O didn’t stop at people who use Android and Chrome apps; the company also unveiled a wide-ranging set of AI tools for people developing those apps.
In the Play Store, the changes will have AI serving as both a marketing and a management assistant for developers. Potential customers will be able to discover apps in Google’s Gemini and have the chatbot send them directly to Play Store pages. Those curious about a particular app’s features or requirements can ask their own questions in the Ask Play Q&A interface.
On a developer’s side of the screen, new AI-driven Play Store management tools will be able to create new listings in response to keyword-search insights, automate catalog management, evaluate payment glitches to give people judged as low-risk subscribers a little more time in payment-required content, and present retention offers to customers who click a “cancel” button.
Google recently cut its Play Store charges for developers; automated help like this may make its remaining take of 10 to 20%, depending on such factors as whether it’s a new purchase or a subscription or if the developer clears more than $1 million a year on the Play Store, more palatable.
Android programmers can also put AI to work coding their apps via prompts in Google’s AI Studio. But Google is focusing this venture into vibe coding only on a few categories of apps, such as “personal utilities and simple social apps,” apps that leverage device hardware like cameras and accelerometers, and “AI-powered experiences” built around Google Gemini AI.
Other changes for Android developers include a command-line interface for Android coding that can be directed by such programming-assistant AIs as Anthropic’s Claude Code or OpenAI’s Codex, new options in the Engage SDK to market apps to potential users, and short-form Play Shorts videos to advertise app features and TikTok-ify your Play Store experience a little more. And game authors can use the Play Games Sidekick overlay to provide coaching in more Android games.
In Chrome, the news leads with the addition of a trial version of WebMCP, a proposed web standard for the Model Context Protocol interface that lets AI agents connect directly to a site’s APIs. Google lists Booking.com, Credit Karma, Etsy, Expedia, Instacart, Redfin, Shopify, Target, and TurboTax as early partner sites.
Other AI features coming to Chrome include expanded built-in AI tools that run directly in the browser instead of on a server and AI assistance with writing, debugging, and optimizing code.
The non-AI news about Chrome begins with tests of two new web-coding options, HTML-in-Canvas API and element-scoped view transitions, that Google says will allow more app- and game-like interfaces, and includes tools like “Core Web Vitals measurement” for app-like pages and better compatibility stats to let site operators know how much of their audience is using browsers that support these modern features.
Among such wonky bits, this part caught our eyes: “Immediate UI Mode.” That lets a site present a unified password-or-passkey login interface that should streamline passkey authentication–something that too many sites still struggle with.