Nothing says it has just taken “the first step towards an AI-native operating system.” Not exactly. Playground, Nothing’s new app store filled with user-designed, AI-generated apps, is neither Nothing’s first step, nor is it an operating system — it’s built on Android. But the idea lands, and beneath the hype, it is genuinely exciting — a glimpse of smartphones that feel more personal and adaptable, with a clear vision for where this might go in the future.
The bold proclamation of an AI-native OS centers on the launch of Essential, which Nothing says brings us closer to a world “where devices adapt to people, not the other way around.” In plain speak, Essential is Nothing’s “name for all our AI-related products,” founder and CEO Carl Pei tells The Verge. Despite the London startup claiming to be unveiling Essential today, the line actually has several products live already, including an AI search tool and Essential Space, which organizes voice notes and images.
What’s really new is Playground, and with it Essential Apps. Playground is basically Nothing’s take on an app store. Filling it will be apps designed in Essential Apps, an AI-powered tool that can build simple apps from written prompts alone. In short, users can design their own apps for their own needs. Nothing suggests a mood tracker that syncs with a music playlist, a receipt-to-expenses-form pipeline, or an app that can suggest what to wear based on your wardrobe and upcoming appointments.
1/3
It’s clear this is the early stages of what Pei imagines as a much larger ecosystem, making some of Nothing’s “first step” comments make more sense. At the moment, you can only design widgets, which obviously limits what they can do. Apps must also be created on a web platform with written inputs, at which point creators can install them on their own phones or add them to Playground for others to download. It’s available exclusively to Nothing phones, with the exception of the Phone 1, which Pei says no longer receives major updates so can’t install the new apps.
Over time, Pei tells The Verge this process of app creation will become “more and more seamless,” taking place directly on the phone itself and perhaps by just speaking. Widgets are not the end game either, Pei says, forecasting more capable apps that take up the entire screen, comparable to the standard apps we have today.
There are also the kernels of what could become a new creator economy, if the idea takes off. Playground lets users take and remix apps others have made, building and evolving in a similar fashion to the open source community does today. For someone who speaks a lot about the moats smartphone giants Apple and Google have built around their app stores, Pei claims he is not thinking about how to monetize the store yet. “I think it needs to reach a certain level of scale before we can turn on whatever business model we have,” he says, adding that “YouTube could be a good example of where it could potentially go” for creators.
Eventually — and here’s where the AI-native OS idea comes in — Pei says phones could be more proactive, changing apps’ placement, or even suggesting apps based on how we use the phone. But even then, this is not an OS. It is an interface. Pei admits as much, leaning on semantics to skirt the issue: “I guess the word or the noun ‘OS’ could be interpreted in different ways.”
Pei tells The Verge Nothing has no intention of abandoning Google’s Android, the system on which its products are currently built. “We’re not touching the lower level code,” he says. “Android is a great platform to build upon, and Android already has a rich developer ecosystem,” Pei explains. People will still need to download apps like Instagram or Tiktok when starting up their phones, after all.
It’s an exciting new feature and potentially a new and exciting creator economy. But there is a long way to go before Nothing can truly go it alone. In a departure from the hyped AI-powered gadgets like Rabbit’s R1 or OpenAI’s partnership with former Apple designer Jony Ive, Pei is not promising to do away with the smartphone just yet. It is clear Pei believes phones are here to stay when he asks himself, “When am I ready to say goodbye to apps?” and answers: “You know, not anytime soon.”
