Nothing launches AI Playground for Simple App Creation Using Prompts

09/30/2025 Apps

Nothing, the smartphone company known for its transparent designs, is diving deeper into the world of AI. They've just launched Playground, a new AI tool that lets you whip up simple apps using just text prompts. Imagine describing what you want an app to do, and then, boom, it exists!

Right now, Playground is focused on creating widgets, those bite-sized apps that live on your home screen. Think flight trackers, meeting reminders, or even a virtual pet. You can either start from scratch with a text prompt or tweak an existing app from Nothing's Essential Apps platform. If you're tech-savvy, you can even dive into the code to fine-tune things.

While full-fledged, immersive apps aren't on the table just yet – Nothing says the technology isn't quite ready for that – it's still a pretty cool concept. It reminds me a bit of the early days of web development, where people were creating all sorts of experimental and quirky things.

This move comes shortly after Nothing secured a hefty $200 million in funding. CEO Carl Pei has made it clear that they're aiming to build an operating system packed with AI features, alongside developing new AI-powered devices.

Pei believes that smartphone software hasn't been evolving fast enough. He argues that we're sitting on a goldmine of personal data that our devices could be leveraging to create more personalized experiences. He noted that many companies simply follow what big players like Apple do because its a safer path.

Essential Space, which is their AI-enabled app, lets you share screenshots, record voice notes, and get meeting transcriptions. Sure, many smartphones can already do this, but Nothing seems to be betting that AI can take these features to the next level.

The company's still a relatively small player in the smartphone market, with less than 1% global share. But Pei sees this as an advantage, suggesting it allows them to be more agile and experimental.

One of the big challenges, as Pei acknowledges, will be ensuring security as they open up app creation to a wider audience. It's crucial to make things easy to use but also difficult to mess up.

For now, Nothing isn't charging for Playground. Their focus is on building a community around the tool and recognizing the people who are creating cool and useful widgets. This is nice, since there are so many apps nowadays with paid tiers and subscriptions,