JuicyTalk
Posted by Sandhya Mohan, Senior Product Manager and Trevor Johns, Developer Relations Engineer
We are excited to announce that Android Studio Otter 3 Feature Drop is now stable! This feature-packed release brings a huge update to your agentic workflows in Android Studio, and offers you more flexibility and control for how you use AI to help you build Android apps.
- Bring Your Own Model: You can now use any LLM to power the AI functionality in Android Studio.
- Agent Mode Enhancements: You can now more easily have Agent Mode interact with your app on devices, review and accept suggested changes, and have multiple conversations threads.
- Run user journey tests using natural language: with Journeys in Android Studio.
- Enable Agent Mode to connect to more tools: including the ability to connect to remote servers via MCP.
- Build, iterate and test your UI: with UI agentic experiences in Android Studio.
- Build deep links using natural language: with the new app links assistant.
- Debug R8 optimized code: with Automatic Logcat retracing.
- Simplify Android library modules: with the Fused library plugin.
Here’s a deep dive into what’s new:
Bring Your Own Model (BYOM)
Every developer has a unique workflow when using AI, and different companies have different policies on AI model usage. With this release, Android Studio now brings you more flexibility by allowing you to choose the LLM that powers the AI functionality in Android Studio, giving you more control over performance, privacy, and cost.
Use a remote model
You can now integrate remote models—such as OpenAI’s GPT, Anthropic’s Claude, or a similar model—directly into Android Studio. This allows you to leverage your preferred model provider without changing your IDE. To get started, configure a remote model provider in Settings by adding your API endpoint and key. Once configured, you can select your custom model directly from the picker in the AI chat window.
Enter the remote model provider information.
Use a local model
If you have limited internet connectivity, strict data privacy requirements, or a desire to experiment with open-source research, Android Studio now supports local models via providers like LM Studio or Ollama. While Gemini in Android Studio remains the default recommendation—tuned specifically for Android development with full context awareness—if you have a specific model preference, Android Studio supports it.
Model picker in Android Studio.
A local model offers an alternative to the LLM support built into Android Studio, and typically requires significant local system RAM and hard drive space to run well. However, Gemini in Android Studio provides the best Android development experience because Gemini is tuned for Android and supports all features of Android Studio. With Gemini, you can choose from a variety of models for your Android development tasks, including the no-cost default model or models accessed with a paid Gemini API key.
Use your Gemini API key
While Android Studio includes access to a default Gemini model with generous quotas at no cost, some developers need more. By adding your Gemini API key, Android Studio can directly access all the latest Gemini models available from Google.
For example, this allows you to use the most recent Gemini 3 Pro and Gemini 3 Flash models (among others) with expanded context windows and quota. This is especially useful for developers who are using Agent Mode for extended coding sessions, where this additional processing power can provide higher fidelity responses.
Agent Mode enhancements
Run your app and interact with it on devices
Agent Mode can now deploy an application to the connected device, inspect what is currently shown on the screen, take screenshots, check Logcat for errors, and interact with the running application. This lets the agent help you with changes or fixes that involve re-running the application, checking for errors, and verifying that a particular update was made successfully (for example, by taking and reviewing screenshots).
Agent mode uses device actions to deploy and verify changes.
Find and review changes using the changes drawer
You can now see and manage all changes made by the AI agent using the changes drawer. When the agent makes changes to your codebase, you can see the files that were edited in Files to review. From there, you can keep or revert the changes individually or all together. Click an individual file in the drawer to see the code diff in the editor and make refinements if needed. With the changes drawer, you can keep track of edits made by the agent during your chat and revisit specific changes without scrolling back through your conversation history.
See all the files that the agent has proposed edits to in the changes drawer.
Accept a change to add it to the changes drawer.
Manage multiple conversation threads
You can now organize your conversations with Gemini in Android Studio into multiple threads. This lets you create a new chat or agent thread when you need to start with a clean slate, and you can go back to older conversations in the history tab. Using separate threads for each distinct task can improve response quality by limiting the scope of the AI’s context to only the topic at hand.
See prior conversations in the “Recent Chats” tab.
Your conversation history is saved to your account, so if you have to sign out or switch accounts you can resume right where you left off when you come back.
Journeys for Android Studio
Journeys for Android Studio.
These natural language instructions are converted into interactions that Gemini performs directly on your app. This not only makes your tests easier to write and understand, but also enables you to define complex assertions that Gemini evaluates based on what it “sees” on the device screen. Because Gemini reasons about how to achieve your goals, these tests are more resilient to subtle changes in your app’s layout, significantly reducing flaky tests when running against different app versions or device configurations.
Journeys for Android Studio.
Support for remote MCP servers
Connect to the Figma remote MCP server in Android Studio Settings.
Quickly add a screen to your app using the Figma remote MCP server.
Supercharge your UI development with Agent Mode
Create new UI from a design mock
Accelerate your initial UI implementation by generating Compose code directly from a design mock. Simply click Generate Code From Screenshot in an empty Preview panel, and Gemini will use the image to generate a starting implementation, saving you from writing boilerplate from scratch.
Generate code from a screenshot in an empty Preview panel.
Example turning design into Compose code.Match your UI with a target image
Once you have an initial implementation, you can iteratively refine it to be pixel-perfect. Right-click your Compose Preview and select AI Actions > Match UI to Target Image. Upload a reference design, and the agent will suggest code changes to make your UI match the design as closely as possible.
Example of using “Match UI to Target Image”Iterate on your UI with natural language
For more specific or creative changes, right-click on your preview and use the AI Actions > Change UI. This capability now leverages Agent Mode to validate the results, making it more powerful and accurate. You can use natural language prompts like “change the button color to blue” or “add padding around this text,” and Gemini will apply the code modifications instantly.
Example of using “Change UI”
Find and fix UI quality issues
Verifying your UI is high-quality and more accessible is a critical final step. The AI Actions > Fix all UI check tool audits your UI for common problems, such as accessibility issues. The agent will then propose and apply fixes to resolve the detected issues.
Entry point to trigger “Fix all UI check issues”
You can also find the same functionality by using the Fix with AI button in Compose UI check mode:
“Fix with AI” in UI Check mode
The features mentioned above are also accessible by the toolbar icon in the Preview panel:
Second entry point to UI development AI features
Beyond iterating on your UI, Gemini also helps streamline your development environment.
To accelerate your setup, you can:- Generate Compose Previews: This feature is now enhanced by Agent Mode to provide more accurate results. When working in a file that has Composable functions but no @Preview annotations, you can right-click on the Composable and select Gemini > Generate [Composable name] Preview. The agent will now better analyze your Composable to generate the necessary boilerplate with correct parameters, to help verify that a successfully rendered preview is added.
Entry point to generate Compose Preview
- Fix Preview rendering errors: When a Compose Preview fails to render, Gemini can now analyze the error message and your code to find the root cause and apply a fix.
Using “Fix with AI” on Preview render error
App Links Assistant
The App Links Assistant now integrates with Agent Mode to automate the creation of deep link logic, simplifying one of the most time-consuming steps of implementation. Instead of manually writing code to parse incoming intents and navigate users to the correct screen, you can now let Gemini generate the necessary code and tests. Gemini presents a diff view of the suggested code changes for your review and approval, streamlining the process of handling deep links and ensuring users are seamlessly directed to the right content in your app.
To get started, open the App Links Assistant through the tools menu, then choose Create Applink. In the second step, Add logic to handle the intent, select Generate code with AI assistance. If a sample URL is available, enter it, and then click Insert Code.
App Links Assistant
Automatic Logcat Retracing
Debugging R8-optimized code just became seamless. Previously, when R8 was enabled (minifyEnabled = true in your build.gradle.kts file), it would obfuscate stack traces, changing class names, methods, and line numbers. To find the source of a crash, developers had to manually use the R8 retrace command line tool.
Starting with Android Studio Otter 3 Feature Drop with AGP versions 8.12 and above, this extra step is no longer necessary. Logcat now automatically detects and retraces R8-processed stack traces, so you can see the original, human-readable stack trace directly in the IDE. This provides a much-improved debugging experience with no extra work required.
Logcat now automatically detects and retraces R8-processed stack traces
Fused Library Plugin: Publish multiple Android libraries as one
Get started
Ready to dive in and accelerate your development? Download Android Studio Otter 3 Feature Drop and start exploring these powerful new features today!
As always, your feedback is crucial to us. Check known issues, report bugs, and be part of our vibrant community on LinkedIn, Medium, YouTube, or X. Let’s build the future of Android apps together!
