Google had a monumental slip-up this week. The Mountain View company accidentally published a brand-new app called Cosmo on the Play Store, an artificial intelligence assistant designed to live directly on your Android device. The app was available for just a few hours before Google hastily removed it, as if someone had pressed the wrong button at the worst possible moment. The curious thing is that the leak wasn't a hack or an internal information breach. Someone at Google simply released the app ahead of schedule. And of course, within minutes, the tech community had already discovered it, downloaded it, and analyzed it meticulously.

Cosmo, the AI ??assistant Google didn't want you to see yet

Cosmo isn't just any assistant. Unlike Gemini, which primarily operates in the cloud and requires an internet connection for almost everything, Cosmo is designed to operate directly from the device, thanks to an integrated Gemini Nano model that can function even offline.

That makes it much deeper and more personal. Essentially, Cosmo would install itself on your phone and begin listening, observing, and understanding the context of everything you do. It sounds a bit like science fiction, but Google had already mapped out several of the features it planned to offer with this app. Among the capabilities that could be seen before the listing disappeared from the store, the following stood out:

In addition, Google had considered three operating modes for the assistant. Hybrid mode would use cloud servers when there was an internet connection and switch to the local model when there wasn't. PI Only mode would depend exclusively on remote servers, while Nano Only mode would work entirely on the device. A rather sophisticated architecture for an app that was supposedly just an internal experiment.

A leak that comes just before Google I/O

The timing of the error couldn't be more revealing. Google I/O 2026 is in just a few weeks,And it is precisely at this event where the company usually presents its biggest innovations in artificial intelligence and software.Everything points to Cosmo being reserved for this stage, and someone hitting "publish" much earlier than planned. Users who managed to download it before it disappeared reported that the app was clearly in a very early stage of development. It functioned in a rudimentary way, with many "processing" messages and a user experience that left much to be desired. One user who accessed it using a VPN commented that the app bombarded them with follow-up questions and didn't answer correctly, confirming that it still needed work before being ready for the general public. This reinforces the hypothesis that Cosmo was part of an internal or trusted tester program, and that its appearance on the Play Store was an accidental release that no one at Google had planned for. The app's removal was equally swift: within hours, the link stopped working and the listing disappeared from the store.

What Cosmo Reveals About Google's AI Plans

Beyond the stumble, what this incident makes clear is that Google is working on something much more ambitious than Gemini. Cosmo represents a new generation of assistants that not only answer questions but also interact with the user, learn from their context, and act proactively before being asked. It's the leap from a reactive assistant to a truly autonomous one.

The difference compared to what we know today is enormous. Gemini can answer a query if you ask it. Cosmo, on the other hand, would notice that you're planning something and act before you ask. It would listen to your conversation, detect that you mentioned a meeting at 3 PM, and offer to schedule the event without you even requesting it. That level of contextual integration is what Google seems to be building with this project.

And although the app was taken down, what users who explored it saw suggests that the product is more advanced than Google wanted to admit.

The features described in the product sheet, the three operating modes, and the integration with tools like the calendar, browser, and clock aren't just the outline of an idea. They're the skeleton of a product that already has a shape.

Google hasn't officially commented on Cosmo. But with Google I/O just around the corner, it's likely they won't have to wait long to reveal exactly what slipped through their fingers this week. The unintentional error ended up being, unwittingly, the most effective teaser Google could have released.