Rabbit R1 Artificial Intelligence Could One Day Replace Your Smartphone
The Rabbit R1, a device that acts as an AI-powered assistant that aims to replace all the apps on your smartphone, was one of the most interesting and unusual devices unveiled at CES 2024. Now, Rabbit has confirmed that the (sold out) first batch of devices will be shipping ​next week.
Starting March 31, the first shipment of Rabbit R1 will be shipped to the first 10,000 people to place pre-orders in Canada and the US, although Rabbit says the devices could take up to three weeks to arrive. The next batch of Rabbit R1 devices are expected to begin shipping in April and May, although Rabbit has not yet provided a specific time frame.
What is Rabbit R1?
If this is your first time hearing about the Rabbit R1, you’re not alone, and even explaining what it does is a little difficult. The Rabbit R1 works like a smartphone, offering an AI assistant that can handle requests like queuing music and taking photos. When you use your smartphone, you download different apps to perform different tasks, but the Rabbit R1 AI assistant is trained to perform these tasks on its own. Rabbit’s software is apparently even smart enough to work with some of your existing mobile apps if you show it how.
It’s an intriguing way to reimagine your mobile digital life. Rabbit R1 is partially powered by the Perplexity artificial intelligence engine; Perplexity is another competitor to ChatGPT, which means you’ll be able to talk to the device and ask it to do the same things you can with ChatGPT or Google Gemini. According to The Verge, Rabbit R1’s “large action model” (as opposed to ChatGPT’s large language model) was trained by real people interacting with various applications, “essentially showing the models how they work.”
Why you’d want to carry another device in addition to your smartphone is another question entirely. The company claims the Rabbit R1 can do just about anything, but only time will tell what kind of things people will actually do with it once they get their hands on it.
If all of this sounds intriguing to you, you can pre-order the Rabbit R1 directly from Rabbit for $199, although you’ll likely have to wait a few months for delivery. You can also watch this demo from Rabbit founder Jesse Liu to see the device in action.