TL;DR
- Android 17 is building a dedicated Settings screen to manage which apps your AI assistants can automate — a per-app allowlist for the “Computer Control” feature, with an empty state and a count of how many assistants have access to each app.
- The “Computer Control” feature itself isn’t new — Android Authority detailed it back in October 2025, including its session-based approval. What’s new here is the management/audit surface in Settings.
- We found ~37 related strings in the system Settings app on Android 17 QPR1 Beta 5 (build CP31.260608.007). It isn’t live yet; work-in-progress code can change or never ship.
Google‘s “Computer Control” — the framework that lets an AI agent operate apps on your behalf via screen automation — is not a secret. Android Authority’s Mishaal Rahman detailed it in October 2025, explaining how it uses virtual displays and how an app must “ask the user to explicitly approve their use… for a single session or for all future sessions.” What hasn’t been shown until now is where you’d actually manage those approvals — and a teardown of Android 17 QPR1 Beta 5 suggests the answer is a new screen buried in Settings.
A per-app allowlist for screen automation
The new strings describe a list, scoped per assistant, of which apps it’s been allowed to automate. An empty-state string — computer_control_automation_agent_list_empty_title — reads “You don’t have any apps that can use screen automation,” implying the list fills in as you grant individual apps. A second string, computer_control_automation_agents_allowed_flag_per_app_consent_v2, counts how many “digital assistants” currently have access (“1 digital assistant” / “# digital assistants”), suggesting you can also view it from an app’s side.
In other words, this looks like the management counterpart to the approval flow Android Authority described: rather than only granting access in the moment, you’d get a Settings page to review and revoke which assistants can drive which apps. The v2 suffix hints Google has iterated on the design at least once.
The evidence
Among ~37 computer_control_* strings new to the system Settings app in Beta 5:
computer_control_automation_agent_list_empty_title =
"You don't have any apps that can use screen automation"
computer_control_automation_agents_allowed_flag_per_app_consent_v2 =
"{count, plural, =1 {1 digital assistant} other {# digital assistants}}"We found these in the code but couldn’t surface the screen in Settings on our device — there’s no list to populate yet, consistent with build- or server-gated work. We’ll keep watching the betas and update if the management screen goes live.
