London, September 30, 2025 – Nothing today announced Essential, its new AI platform designed to be the foundation of a future personal operating system (OS). Essential introduces a radical shift in how people interact with technology, moving away from one-size-fits-all software toward hyper-personalised, adaptive experiences powered by AI.

The platform debuts with two core offerings:

• Essential Apps: Instantly create personalised apps with natural language prompts.
• Playground: A community-driven hub to build, share, remix, and download Essential Apps and other creations, free from the restrictions of traditional app stores.

“With Essential, we begin to chip away at the outdated and elitist system set up by the legacy market leaders. A new era requires new thinking. The future of software will be one of unrestricted access, collective innovation, and hyper personalisation,” said Carl Pei, CEO of Nothing.

Essential Apps: AI That Builds What You Need

Instead of static app rows, Essential lets users design tools on the fly. For example:

• “Capture receipts from camera roll and export a finance-ready PDF every Friday.”
• “Show me a one-page call brief from my calendar and messages.”
• “Create a mood tracker synced with my music playlist.”

These apps are generated instantly and added directly to the home screen, bringing the vision of a personal OS closer to reality.

Playground: A New Era of Community Creation

Playground is a community-powered platform where users can create, remix, and share Essential Apps. In early testing, the Nothing community built hundreds of apps, from mental health trackers to family organisers, showing the power of AI in addressing real, personal needs.

Independent Innovation at Scale

In just five years, Nothing has shipped millions of devices worldwide, generating over $1 billion in sales, proving that independent platforms can scale even in markets dominated by tech giants. Essential builds on this foundation, combining hardware and AI-native software to create a truly personal ecosystem.

This launch marks the beginning of a new platform era, where technology adapts to individuals instead of individuals adapting to technology. Essential sets the stage for smartphones that move at the speed of imagination—not more apps, just more possibilities.

For more information, visit Nothing’s official website.