- Microsoft reveals Project Solara proof of concept for new AI devices
- Wearable devices allow AI agents to access new form factors and use cases
- Pilot testing is underway, but broader rollouts are still a ways off
Microsoft has unveiled Project Solara, its bid to help free its AI agents from the PC or smartphone and unleash them on the rest of the 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,” seeks 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 that resembles a mobile speaker for your office or home desk, and a more portable option that resembles an office lanyard.
Solara Project
“When we think of a computer, we tend to imagine something familiar: a laptop, a phone, maybe a tablet,” wrote Steven Bathiche, CVP and technical member of Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group, in a blog post announcing the news, “but computing has never really stopped. It keeps coming closer to us, closer to work, closer to the moment when it can provide the most value.”
“Mainframes didn’t disappear when PCs arrived. PCs didn’t disappear when phones arrived. Telephones didn’t disappear when watches arrived. Each new form became more specialized, closer to you, closer to the solution you need. Each 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 their presentation, part of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote speech at the event, the devices, built with Qualcomm and MediaTek hardware, were shown to benefit a wide range of use cases.
For the card device, which included a camera and fingerprint scanner, we saw a healthcare professional scanning to quickly access a patient’s information and a warehouse worker using their device to send tracking information for a package, all without the need to go through multi-stage processes that require time and effort.
The desktop concept, immediately reminiscent of the Amazon Echo Show, was shown in a more business environment, unlocking with facial recognition and providing 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, and revealed that it had signed up companies such as AccuWeather, Best Buy, CVS Healthcare and Target for pilot launches.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to receive news, reviews and opinions from our experts in your feeds.
