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- Microsoft reveals Project Solara proof of concept for new AI devices
- Portable devices allow AI agents to break into new form factors and use cases
- Pilots are underway, but wider launches are still some way off
Microsoft has unveiled Project Solara, its bid to help free your AI agents from the PC or smartphone and unleash them into the wider world.
Announced at Microsoft Build 2026, the new service, described as “a chip-to-cloud platform...a turnkey solution for building unique agent-first devices", looks to give hardware makers a low-cost way to make AI agents more portable, and open them up to more use cases.
The company showed off two concept devices at Build - one resembling a mobile speaker for your office or home desk, and a more portable option resembling an office lanyard.
Project Solara
“When we think of a computer, we tend to picture something familiar: a laptop, a phone, maybe a tablet,” Steven Bathiche, CVP & Technical Fellow, Applied Sciences Group, Microsoft, wrote in a blog post announcing the news, “But computing has never really stood still. It keeps moving closer to us, closer to the work, closer to the moment where it can provide the most value.”
“Mainframes did not disappear when PCs arrived. PCs did not disappear when phones arrived. Phones did not disappear when watches arrived. Each new form became more specialized, closer to you, closer to the solution you need. Each one found a new place in our lives because it was better suited to a specific context, a specific task, or a specific moment. So, what’s next?”
In its presentation, part of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s opening keynote at the event, the devices, built using Qualcomm and MediaTek hardware, were shown as benefitting a wide range of use cases.
For the card device, which packed a camera and fingerprint scanner, we saw a healthcare professional scanning in to quickly access information on a patient, and a warehouse worker using their device to send tracking information on a package, all without the need to go through multi-stage processes that take time and effort.
The desk concept, which immediately recalls the Amazon Echo Show, was shown in more of a business setting, unlocking with facial recognition and provides access to AI agents or a user’s Windows files and calendar.
Project Solara is still in the concept stage, but the company is hopeful it will lead to further development, revealing it had signed up the likes of AccuWeather, Best Buy, CVS Healthcare, and Target for pilot launches.
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