Kotlin 2025-2026: Language and Ecosystem Development Roadmap

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Kotlin Development Roadmap for 2025–2026: What Awaits Developers

The JetBrains team has published an updated development plan for the Kotlin language for 2025 and 2026. The focus is on the performance of the K2 compiler, the maturity of Kotlin Multiplatform, improved tools for server-side development, and the first steps in AI integration. We break down the key points of the roadmap.

Stability of K2 and Kotlin 2.2

After the release of Kotlin 2.0 with the K2 compiler, in 2025 the team will focus on bringing K2 to full stability for all platforms. The release of Kotlin 2.2 is expected with improved build performance, reduced incremental compilation time, and fixes for remaining compatibility bugs.

Kotlin 2.2 (2025) — final stabilization of K2, improved Gradle support, regression fixes
Kotlin 2.3 (2026) — new language features (continued work on context functions and improved generics)

Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) Reaches a New Level

2025 will be the year KMP ceases to be experimental. JetBrains promises a stable API for all targets, including iOS, Android, WebAssembly (Wasm), and native platforms. Special emphasis is placed on simplifying project setup and improving compatibility with CocoaPods and Swift Package Manager.

Stable KMP — moving away from the @OptIn annotation for multiplatform libraries
Improved compatibility with iOS and macOS, including support for Swift async/await
Kotlin/Wasm — the experimental target will become production-ready

Server-Side Development: Ktor 4.0 and Backend Improvements

Kotlin continues to strengthen its position as a language for server-side development. In 2025–2026, the release of Ktor 4.0 is expected with a redesigned architecture, improved support for gRPC, WebSockets, and OpenAPI. JetBrains is also working on integration with Spring Boot 4 and GraalVM Native Image to reduce startup time.

Ktor 4.0 — modular architecture, support for Virtual Threads (Project Loom)
Improved compatibility with GraalVM — reducing startup time to 50 ms
New plugin for automatic API documentation generation

AI and Developer Tools

JetBrains is actively investing in AI assistants. In 2025–2026, deep integration of the JetBrains AI Assistant into IntelliJ IDEA is expected, including Kotlin code generation, refactoring, and autocompletion that takes into account the context of multiplatform projects. The release of a specialized AI agent for optimizing KMP libraries is also planned.

"We want Kotlin to become the most convenient language for developing AI applications," said Roman Elizarov, lead Kotlin developer. "This means not only tools but also libraries for ML on native code."