Ex-Android leaders are building an OS for AI agents

Remember the chaotic early days of mobile before Android gave developers a unified playground? The executives who built that playbook are getting the band back together, and this time they want to organize the messy world of AI agents.

A crew of former top Android executives has unveiled a new startup called /dev/agents. Their mission is straightforward: build a dedicated, cloud-based operating system for AI agents.

The Android dream team reunites

The roster behind /dev/agents reads like a who's who of early Android history.

Co-founder and CEO David Singleton previously served as Google's VP of engineering for Android. Joining him as Chief Product Officer is Hugo Barra, the longtime public face of Android who later went on to run international expansion at Xiaomi and lead the Oculus VR division at Facebook.

Rounding out the leadership team are CTO Ficus Kirkpatrick, an early Android engineer and former Meta AR/VR VP, and Chief Design Officer Nicholas Jitkoff, who previously led design for ChromeOS. Barra noted that the new venture is a chance for the team to revisit their original Android roots.

Building the plumbing for agents

While OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google are racing to roll out autonomous agents in the coming months, building them remains an absolute headache for everyday developers.

Singleton told Bloomberg that while everyone sees the promise of AI agents, actually building anything good right now is simply too hard. He argued that the AI ecosystem desperately needs an "Android-like moment."

In a post on X, Singleton detailed what they are working on: a cloud-based operating system designed to let trusted agents work seamlessly across all of a user's devices. He pointed out that making agents practical will require entirely new UI patterns, a reimagined privacy model, and a platform that radically simplifies agent development.

Why it matters

Right now, AI agents feel a lot like smartphones in 2007. The concept is incredible, but the underlying plumbing is fragmented, clunky, and exhausting for developers to navigate.

We think this team is aiming at the right target. Rather than burning billions trying to train yet another frontier foundation model, they are tackling the layer everyone seems to struggle with: cross-device permissions, developer tooling, and user trust. If they can make agent development as accessible as mobile app development became in the 2010s, it could unleash a wave of genuinely useful tools.

However, pulling this off will be significantly tougher than launching Android was. Back then, Google partnered with carriers and hardware makers who were desperate to beat the iPhone. Today, Apple and Google tightly control mobile operating systems, and building an overarching cloud OS that plays nicely across those walled gardens will be an uphill battle.