Kiro for Android explained: what it changes for small teams

The short answer for a small software team

Kiro has made Kiro for Android available on Google Play, and the launch was dated November 12, 2026, according to Kiro. It lets an engineer start a cloud coding session, follow it, answer its questions and review its file changes from an Android phone, but the launch page lists no new price, so it changes where the work happens rather than what your team pays. Act this month only if your engineers already run Kiro sessions or your team is choosing an agent tool in the next few weeks.

A cloud session is a Kiro task that runs in Kiro's cloud sandbox rather than on the phone, so it keeps going when the phone is put away, per Kiro's mobile docs.

TL;DR: Android access is live on paid plans, sessions carry across Kiro CLI, Web, IDE and Android, the phone handles steering and review, and the pages we read name no separate app fee. The real question is whether your team's agent work needs to move with people, not whether a phone app exists.

Key Takeaways

• Kiro for Android requires a paid Kiro plan. A team on the free tier cannot use it.

• Sessions sync across Kiro CLI, Web, IDE and Android, so work started on one surface can be picked up on another.

• Organizations on IAM Identity Center need an administrator to enable cloud sessions before anyone signs in on Android, and cloud sessions run only in us-east-1 for now.

• Kiro's docs say memory is unavailable and some setup, such as changing Git providers, stays in Kiro Web, so plan a laptop step for setup.

• Kilo's Android app also controls local CLI and editor sessions remotely, a capability Kiro's mobile docs do not list.

• Act this month only if engineers already run Kiro cloud sessions. Otherwise, score the options with the criteria table below first.

What launched, and what it replaces

Kiro's Android release is the second phone app for the product. The first was a Kiro for iOS preview, announced June 17, 2026 for Pro, Pro+, Pro Max and Power customers, which requires iOS 26 or later, per Kiro's iOS post. Our earlier note on Kiro for iOS covers that preview in more detail.

Kiro's docs use "Kiro Mobile" as the umbrella name for both phone apps. The docs list Google Play for Android with Android 10 or later, and the iOS version through Apple TestFlight during early access. The Android changelog says Kiro Mobile "is now available on Google Play, so you can work in Kiro cloud sessions from your Android phone," and it states no Android version requirement.

Against the iOS preview, the Android launch page describes the same core flow: start a session, answer the agent, review diffs and open a pull request. The docs and changelog are narrower on pull requests. The changelog says reviewing and merging happen outside the app, in your Git provider, so check which of those steps your workflow actually needs.

Kilo's comparison page, dated August 2026, says Kiro is iOS-only with gated early access, per Kilo's comparison page. The Android launch makes that point out of date. The same page's Kiro price also does not match Kiro's own pricing page, so this article uses Kiro's pricing page for every Kiro price.

We found no renamed, merged or discontinued product in this launch. The Android app and the iOS preview are one product family under two store listings.

How we evaluated these tools

We weighted six criteria for a small B2B software team that needs a fast decision. This is a desk review of public vendor pages and independent sources, not hands-on testing. The weights are our judgment, not vendor data, and each row names the decision it settles.

We gave the most weight to Android availability and plan access, because those two decide whether the workflow reaches your team. Session continuity and control points together carry 35%, because the buyer's risk sits in approvals, not screen size. Admin controls and disclosed limits together carry 20%, which is a judgment you can change if your IT team is the bottleneck.

Feature matrix: Android, the iOS preview and Kilo's app

Cells show what the vendor pages state. "Not stated" means the pages we read do not say. It does not mean the feature is missing.

Kiro's Android and iOS columns come from the same Kiro Mobile docs, so the public differences are store and operating system. Kilo's column covers the Android app's docs, which list more controls for local sessions but say less about cloud-side limits. Kiro's docs also say Kiro Mobile does not show workflow runs, which matters if your team relies on run history from a phone.

Signal vs speculation

Signal (stated by the vendor or a published source): Kiro says the Android app is on Google Play for paid plans, that organizations on IAM Identity Center need an administrator to enable cloud sessions, and that cloud sessions run in us-east-1. Kilo says its Android app is on Google Play and that its subscription pass is not sold inside the app. Stack Overflow and InfoWorld report the developer-survey figures in the market section below.

Speculation (our read, not a finding): We expect the phone app to matter most to a small team whose engineers already start cloud sessions on Kiro Web, because the app's value is continuity. We have no usage data for either app. Neither vendor page publishes adoption, session counts or performance numbers, so any claim that the app saves time is a hypothesis for your team to test.

Signal gap: The Kiro launch page shows screenshots with test counts and file counts. Those are illustrative mockups, not launch metrics, so we do not use them as evidence.

What it costs, with a five-seat example

Pricing checked November 13, 2026.

Kiro's pricing page lists Pro at $20 per user per month with 1,000 credits, Pro+ at $40 with 2,000 credits, Pro Max at $100 with 5,000 credits and Power at $200 with 10,000 credits, and it lists Teams at $20 per seat for two or more seats with 500 pooled credits per seat, according to Kiro. The pricing page does not say how many credits a cloud session uses, so there is no way to convert Kiro's credits into an hourly rate and set it against Kilo's.

Kilo's Teams plan costs $15 per user per month, its subscription pass has a $19 monthly base with up to 50% bonus credits, and Cloud Agent compute is $0.60 per hour for Small and $1.20 per hour for Standard, with model inference billed separately, according to Kilo. Kilo's Enterprise tier is listed as "Custom" on that page, so we show it as Quote-based. Kilo's mobile docs add that credit packs of $10, $50, $100 and $500 can be bought in the app through StoreKit or Google Play Billing, and that the subscription pass is not sold inside the app, according to Kilo.

The figures in this table come from the two pricing pages cited above. Kiro's mobile docs list Pro, Pro+, Pro Max and Power, and the vendor has not published whether Teams seats get Android access, so confirm that before you count Teams seats in a budget.

Here is a worked example for a five-person team in which two engineers want to start sessions from Android while the other three stay on laptops. On Kiro, five Teams seats at $20 each cost $100 a month and pool 2,500 credits (500 times 5), but that total only matters if Teams seats can use the phone app. On Kilo, five users at $15 each cost $75 a month before compute, and 20 illustrative hours of Cloud Agent Small at $0.60 an hour add $12, for a total of $87 a month with model inference billed on top. If the phone workflow depends on the agent returning a file, check Kilo's send_file tool, which the docs cap at 4 MiB and which works only with a connected remote CLI session, not with Cloud Agent sessions.

Who should choose each option

Pick by where your engineers already work and what needs to move with a person. The profiles below cover best fit, limits, setup and the primary pages behind each claim.

Kiro for Android

Best fit: Small teams already paying for a Kiro plan from Pro upward, whose engineers start work on a laptop and want to answer agent questions or review diffs while away from a desk.

Limitations: Cloud sessions run only in us-east-1 for now. Memory is unavailable in Kiro Web and Kiro Mobile. Autonomous mode locks the model selector to Auto. Kiro Mobile does not show workflow runs, and merging happens in your Git provider.

Implementation: Install from Google Play and sign in with the same identity you use for Kiro CLI, Web or IDE. If your organization uses IAM Identity Center, an administrator must enable cloud sessions first. The launch page says you can connect repositories from Android, but the docs say changing GitHub and GitLab providers happens in Kiro Web, so confirm the setup path with your admin before a rollout.

Primary evidence: Kiro's launch page, Kiro's mobile docs and Kiro's Android changelog.

Kilo App

Best fit: Teams that want to control local Kilo CLI or VS Code sessions from Android, review GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket pull requests, and buy credits through the app store or a web subscription.

Limitations: Kilo Pass cannot be bought inside the app. Older CLI versions lack some remote commands. File transfers are capped, and Bitbucket Cloud is available only in organization contexts. Kilo's July 2026 launch post says that remote sessions and Cloud Agent sessions support only Kilo Gateway models, and it describes the app as in active development, per Kilo's launch post.

Implementation: Install from Google Play, connect your Git provider for pull request review, and update the CLI to a version that supports the remote commands you need.

Primary evidence: Kilo's pricing page and Kilo's mobile docs.

Who this is for

Small B2B software teams with at least one engineer already running Kiro cloud sessions on a paid plan, and operations leads who need approvals to happen away from a desk.

Red flags: your admins cannot enable cloud sessions for IAM Identity Center users; your work needs cloud sessions outside us-east-1; or your approvals depend on merging from the phone, which Kiro's changelog places in the Git provider.

Market context from developer surveys

The 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey was released July 29, 2025. It measures developers in general, not small B2B buyers, and it does not measure phone use, so it cannot tell you whether a phone app will help your team. Agent use is still a minority behavior: Current AI agent use: 31% of respondents according to Stack Overflow (2025). The same release reports that Distrust of AI output accuracy: 46%, up from 31% according to Stack Overflow (2025).

InfoWorld's report on the same survey gives broader use: Use or plan to use AI tools: 84%, up from 76% according to InfoWorld (2025). Among agent users, Agent users reporting less development time: 70% according to InfoWorld (2025).

The read-across is that AI tool use is broad but agent use is narrower. A phone surface matters most to teams already using agents, and the survey cannot show whether small B2B teams gain from it.

Where a workflow layer fits

Most small teams that want this kind of review loop end up stitching it together in Zapier, Make or n8n, or by building it in-house. Those tools can support run histories, retries, error branches and audit evidence when they are configured. The buyer still designs and owns observability, idempotency, escalation, access controls and maintenance. An in-house build gives the most control, but it takes engineering time that a five-person team may not have to spare.

A proposed US Tech Automations workflow for this launch would start with a trigger: a new bug ticket in the team's tracker. The action creates a drafted session brief for a named engineer, and the output is the brief plus a link posted to the team channel. A human review point sits before the session starts, and a second one sits at the diff review on Android. Prerequisites are read access to the tracker and an approved way to start a Kiro session. The pages we read do not describe a Kiro API for starting sessions, so an engineer may need to start the session by hand.

A second proposed workflow would watch for a finished session and open a review task for the team lead with a summary of the changes. US Tech Automations could configure that step only if the team has a session status feed or export, which the pages we read do not describe for Kiro. The review point is the lead's approval, because merges happen in the Git provider.

When NOT to use US Tech Automations

Skip a workflow layer if your team only wants to start a session from a phone now and then, because the Kiro app alone covers that. A single notification is also simpler than a workflow that depends on a status feed you may not have. If your engineers need full local development on a phone, neither Kiro's mobile app nor a workflow layer replaces a laptop.

Glossary

• Cloud session: A Kiro task that runs in Kiro's cloud sandbox, so it keeps running when the phone or laptop is off.

• Credit: The usage unit that plan allowances and add-on purchases are counted in on Kiro's pricing page.

• Diff card: A phone-sized view of one file's edits, so you can review changes file by file.

• IAM Identity Center: AWS's sign-in service. Its administrators must enable cloud sessions before users can open them on Android.

• Autonomous mode: A Kiro Mobile mode in which the model selector shows Auto and cannot be changed.

• BYOK: Bring your own model key. Kilo's pricing page lists this as an option.

• Pull request (PR): A proposed code change in a Git provider. Kiro's changelog says merging happens there.

For the separate Kiro Crew workspace, see our note on Kiro Crew.

Decision checklist for this month

1. Confirm that at least one engineer already uses Kiro cloud sessions on Pro, Pro+, Pro Max or Power.

2. If you use IAM Identity Center, ask an administrator to enable cloud sessions and confirm that setup works before the rollout.

3. Confirm that cloud sessions in us-east-1 meet your data-location rules.

4. Decide where merges happen. Kiro's changelog places them in your Git provider, not in the app.

5. If you also need Kilo's remote control of local sessions, price the seats and compute hours with the worked example above.

6. Name one owner and one review rule before the first session. If you are also comparing models, see our GPT-5.6 alternatives note.

Frequently asked questions

Is Kiro for Android available now?

Yes, Kiro says it is on Google Play for paid Kiro plans, as covered in the launch section above.

Does Kiro for Android work on the free plan?

No. The launch page limits it to paid plans, and the docs list Pro, Pro+, Pro Max and Power.

Can people on IAM Identity Center use it?

Yes, but only after an administrator enables cloud sessions for the organization, which the launch page states.

How does it compare with Kilo's app?

Kiro's Android app centers on Kiro cloud sessions, while Kilo's app also controls local CLI and VS Code sessions and reviews pull requests on GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket. The pricing models differ too: Kiro sells credit allowances per plan, while Kilo charges a seat price plus compute by the hour.

Does it replace the laptop?

No. Sessions run in Kiro's cloud sandbox, and the docs say some tasks, such as changing Git providers and managing configuration sync, stay in Kiro Web.

Should a small team act this month?

Act only if engineers already run Kiro cloud sessions or your admin can enable them quickly; otherwise score the options on compute cost and admin setup first.

Conclusion

Kiro for Android is a narrow, useful step. It moves Kiro cloud sessions onto Android for paid plans, with admin gates, a single cloud region for now and clear gaps in memory and setup. For a small B2B team, it is worth a pilot if engineers already run agent sessions on Kiro, and worth skipping for now if you are still choosing a tool. If you want to test an approval loop like the one described above, see how US Tech Automations configures this and check the prerequisites first.