During its annual developer conference, Microsoft executive Steven Bathiche demonstrated two prototype devices that the company has developed specifically for workers who frequently use artificial intelligence tools. One device is a small portable cube with a touch and voice-activated screen designed for a desk. The other is a lightweight wearable access badge that hangs around the neck on a lanyard or on a belt loop, providing what Microsoft described as quick access to AI-driven work.
Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella said the gadgets represented a “new form factor” for technology devices. In a recorded video shown at the conference, Nadella wore the access badge around his neck on a lanyard, similar to a standard office identification card.
The devices, part of an internal initiative Nadella called Project Solara, connect to Microsoft software and PCs, allowing users to interact with AI agents — bots that perform tasks somewhat autonomously, such as writing software code — without sitting at a laptop or desktop computer. Bathiche said the badge “is lightweight and designed for agent interactions on the go.”
During his demonstration, Bathiche activated the badge using his fingerprint, pointed it at the conference audience, and instructed it to take pictures of the crowd and send them to him for review. The badge did so, he said. The device includes a small camera, which Bathiche said in a blog post allows AI agents “to better understand and help take action on the environment around them.”
Microsoft did not announce plans to bring either product to market. The company said current pilots with the devices, involving a few hundred Microsoft employees, “will inform how these form factors can be built” in the future.
The new prototypes follow Microsoft’s exit from its prior wearable category. The company developed the Hololens, an augmented-reality headset comparable to the Meta Quest or Apple’s Vision Pro, for nearly a decade. Microsoft said in 2024 it would stop producing Hololens after ongoing issues during testing by the U.S. military scuttled a planned multibillion-dollar contract with the Army.
Google is also making a second attempt at wearable hardware. The company recently said it would try again with smart glasses, more than a decade after its Google Glass product was widely ridiculed and failed commercially.
The advancement of AI agents has been cited by major technology executives in a recent wave of layoffs that have affected thousands of workers across the industry.