Here’s what Microsoft’s Satya Nadella said about the new AI device aiming to replace your phone.

Microsoft has been on an AI spree for the past few months, and the company is clearly in the mix of anything unique that comes to market. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke in an interview where he talked about the impact of CES and what products caught his eye at CE 2024 earlier this month.

Nadella mentioned one product and even compared it to the first iPhone released by Steve Jobs in the late 2000s.

The Microsoft chief was impressed by the Rabbit R1 AI device, which he claims is the future of the natural user interface. “I thought the Rabbit OS and device demo was fantastic. I think I’d have to say, after Jobs and the iPhone launch, probably one of the most impressive demos I’ve seen, capturing the vision of what’s possible in the future in an agent-centric OS interface.” Bloomberg quoted Nadella.

It’s interesting to hear Nadella talk about the R1 AI device, especially since his company is heavily involved in the field and nearly landed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as head of its AI division last month in a whirlwind series of events. Artificial intelligence is definitely shaping the future of the tech industry, which invariably comes at the cost of job losses, which we’ve seen recently at Google, Amazon, and Meta, among others.

So what is the Rabbit R1? It’s a $200 (roughly Rs. 17,000) device that performs in-app functions for you. The device uses the Large Action model, which does the tasks for you, such as ordering food or a taxi. R1 hopes to replace the smartphone for people. The device has a 2.88-inch touch screen housed in a handheld console-like body. It resembles a PlayDate console for playing retro-style games.

It has a 2.3GHz MediaTek processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It also has a rotating camera for optics. To use it, you have to press the “Push-to-Talk” button, which activates the Rabbit OS and starts listening for prompts.