The Embodiment of AI#

The chat format is quite useful, but many people feel that it falls short—that this new technology deserves a new form of interaction. I’m not referring only to a new interface, but to new hardware through which we relate to it.

Throughout 2024 and 2025, several early attempts emerged to “embody” AI in physical devices. In January 2024, Rabbit R1 was unveiled—essentially an Android app stuffed into a quirky device with a scroll wheel. In April of the same year came the Humane Pin, worn on the chest and capable of projecting text onto the user’s hand. Later, in September 2025, Friend appeared, a more traditional necklace-shaped device.
So far, all of these attempts have ended in failure: poor execution and a value proposition that never quite clicked.

Curiously, the device that has been a success doesn’t revolve around AI: Meta’s glasses. They’re designed to record video, play music, and handle calls; the AI assistant is just an add-on. In their second version, released in September 2025 (with an integrated display in the lens and a temple with an EMG reader), they show enormous promise. Still, the product is not built around AI. Perhaps that’s precisely why it works: it doesn’t try to be “the ultimate device,” it just tries to be useful.

That said, where expectations are most concentrated is in the collaboration between OpenAI and Jony Ive, Apple’s legendary designer. In May 2025, it was announced that OpenAI had acquired Ive’s startup and team for $6.5 billion, with the goal of creating new AI-centered devices that, according to their promises, could change everything.

We’ll have to wait and see what they unveil. It seems that the proper embodiment of a technology can take years to emerge… and may come from the place we least expect.