- Microsoft unveils Project Solara proof of concept for new AI devices
- Wearable 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 liberate 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 manufacturers 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 that looks like a mobile speaker for your office or home desk, and a more portable option that looks like an office cord.
Project Solara
“When we think of a computer, we tend to imagine something familiar: a laptop, a phone, maybe a tablet,” wrote Steven Bathiche, CVP & Technical Fellow, Applied Sciences Group, Microsoft, in a blog post announcing the news: “But the computer has never really stood still. It keeps moving closer to us, closer to the moment when it can provide the most value.”
“Mainframes didn’t go away when PCs arrived. PCs didn’t go away when phones arrived. Phones didn’t go away 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 certain context, a certain task, or a certain 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 benefiting 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 about a patient, and a warehouse worker using their device to send tracking information on a package, all without having to go through multi-step processes that take time and effort.
The desktop concept, which is immediately reminiscent of the Amazon Echo Show, was shown in a more business context, unlocking with facial recognition and allowing access to AI agents or a user’s Windows files and calendar.
Project Solara is still in the concept stage, but the company hopes it will lead to further development, revealing it had signed up AccuWeather, Best Buy, CVS Healthcare and Target for pilot launches.
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