The Rabbit R1 can fit in the palm of your hand and will be able to answer questions, launch a Spotify playlist or call a taxi with the push of a button. Sounds familiar, right? The Rabbit R1 isn’t a smartphone in the traditional sense. Instead, it promises to be a dedicated personal assistant powered by AI, and it ships in late March for $199.
Our phones are great at many things, like snapping vacation photos, entertaining us with an endless stream of bite-sized videos and acting as our personal planners. That’s exactly the problem, according to Jesse Lyu, founder and CEO of AI tech startup Rabbit. He thinks the myriad apps and functions available on our phones have stripped away their simplicity, and he’s trying to change that with the R1, which debuted at CES 2024.Â
Watch this: First Look at Rabbit R1 Mobile AI Device
You don’t interact with the R1 by opening apps; instead, you press a physical push-to-talk button to ask a question or play a song on Spotify as if you were speaking into a walkie-talkie. The phone’s software is powered by a large action model or an algorithm that can learn from how humans use apps and interfaces so that it can replicate and automate those processes. Lyu likens it to handing your phone to a friend to order takeout rather than doing so yourself.Â
Read more: Your Next Phone Will Likely Be Smarter, Faster and More Bendy
The Rabbit R1 AI Assistant Looks Downright Retro in Orange
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There’s no shortage of virtual assistants capable of doing almost exactly what Rabbit’s R1 claims to do. Google and Amazon are also injecting their own virtual helpers with generative AI smarts to make them even better at handling complex requests more easily. Lyu sees the need for a purpose-built device for getting things done that’s separate from your phone and therefore less distracting. He argues that just because your phone can do the same thing doesn’t mean it’s the superior experience.Â
That argument will take…
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