Kotlin 2025-2026 Roadmap Announced: K2, AI, and Stability

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The Future of Kotlin: What Awaits Developers in 2025-2026

The JetBrains team has published the official development plan for the Kotlin language for the next two years. The main focus is perfecting the K2 compiler, expanding multiplatform development capabilities, and integrating artificial intelligence tools. Let's break down the key points of the roadmap.

Top Priority: Stable K2 Compiler

The transition to the K2 compiler, already available in experimental mode, will be the central event of 2025. K2 is expected to achieve stable status and be enabled by default in all projects. This will provide a significant performance boost — up to 30% when building large projects. Additionally, K2 paves the way for new language features, such as improved generics handling and expanded macro capabilities.

Kotlin Multiplatform: Maturity and Simplification

Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) continues to gain momentum. In 2025-2026, JetBrains plans to:

Improve iOS integration. Full support for Swift Package Manager and improved compatibility with Objective-C will be introduced.
Simplify build configuration. A new system of Gradle plugins will make configuring multiplatform projects intuitive.
Release a stable version of Kotlin/Wasm. WebAssembly support will allow running Kotlin code in the browser with high performance.
Develop Kotlin/JS. Work on improving bundle size and application loading time.

Integration with AI Tools

JetBrains is actively investing in artificial intelligence. The roadmap announces several initiatives:

Smart hints in the IDE. AI-based plugins will offer not only autocompletion but also code refactoring, test writing, and documentation generation.
AI assistant for Kotlin. Integration with local models (LLMs) to assist with code writing directly in IntelliJ IDEA.
ML library support. Improved compatibility of Kotlin with popular machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow and PyTorch via KotlinDL.

Ecosystem and Community

Special attention is given to the development of libraries and tools. Plans include releasing stable versions of the Ktor library (for server-side development) and kotlinx.serialization. A major update to documentation and educational materials is also expected, including interactive courses on JetBrains Academy.

For those just starting to learn Kotlin, the roadmap means the language is becoming even more friendly and powerful. Simplified syntax, improved IDE support, and new K2 capabilities make it an excellent choice for both backend and mobile development.

Stay tuned for updates on the official Kotlin blog and GitHub repositories — JetBrains promises to publish status reports every two months.