You're going to have a lot of replies that simply say yes but they're different tools and they have different use cases.

The implicit threading of Loom works well for things like transparently dealing with IO without blocking an OS thread.

For things like posting back to a UI thread, you'll still need explicit handling not unlike async/await. It seems like Java is taking a scoped approach. https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/loom/Structured+Concur...

I guess it would be fair to say that Loom brings the benefits of async/await without any change in language syntax, and by being compatible with your run-of-the-mill threads

Loom avoids the coloured issue where we have to do Task.Run(() => ....) to avoid polluting the whole call stack with async Task<T>.