It is intended for smartphones with 2 GB of RAM[6] or less and was first made available with the release of Android Oreo.

Android Go has platform optimizations designed to reduce mobile data usage (including enabling Data Saver mode in Google Chrome by default), and a special suite of Google Mobile Services designed to be less resource and bandwidth-intensive.

The Google Play Services package was also modularized to reduce its memory footprint.

[8][9] The operating system's interface differs from that of stock Android, with the quick-settings panel giving greater prominence to information regarding the battery, mobile-data limit, and available storage; the recent apps menu using a modified layout and being limited to four apps (in order to reduce RAM consumption), and an API for allowing mobile carriers to implement data-tracking and top-ups within the Android settings menu.

[7] Some system services, such as notification access, split screen and picture-in-picture mode, are disabled to improve performance.