Revolutionizing Technology: The Rise of AI Agents in the Digital World

[Editor’s Note: Agents of Transformation is an independent GeekWire series, underwritten by Accenture, exploring the adoption and impact of AI and agents. See coverage of our related event.]

A team inside Microsoft has been quietly building a platform for devices that run AI agents instead of apps, based on Android instead of Windows, with two working hardware designs so far, and an initial set of big-name companies lined up to run pilots.

The platform, dubbed “Project Solara,” is Microsoft’s bet that AI will open up entirely new scenarios for computing — using agents to avoid the constraints of traditional software, and off‑the‑shelf components to develop new devices quickly and inexpensively.

Microsoft is racing against Google, Amazon, OpenAI and others to bring AI to devices and provide the technical backbone for a new generation of computing. In effect, the company is attempting to repeat with AI what it did for personal computers five decades ago, with much stiffer competition this time but also far greater technical freedom.

“Boundaries are collapsing,” said Stevie Bathiche, the Microsoft corporate vice president and technical fellow who leads its Applied Sciences Group. “You don’t necessarily need the traditional app model. You don’t need the traditional way of developing experiences.”

The company unveiled Solara on Tuesday at its Build conference in San Francisco, describing it as a new platform that spans from chip to cloud. GeekWire got a behind-the-scenes look at the project during a briefing last week in Redmond, including demos of the first two concept devices based on the platform:

• A desktop hub that sits beside a PC and responds to voice commands, signs users in using facial recognition, and surfaces the day’s most pressing items. With a monitor attached, it becomes a full Windows machine running in the cloud.
• A wearable badge that reimagines the standard employee ID card. A fingerprint button wakes an agent in one press; a single tap records and transcribes a conversation; and a built-in camera lets the agent act on what the user sees.

Microsoft says it won’t ship these devices itself. Instead, it envisions hardware makers and other industry partners turning the reference designs into implementations of their own, each intended for a specific industry, company, or scenario.

For example, in one demo shown by the company, the high-tech badge ran on agents designed for use by a health-care worker, including the ability to scan a patient’s QR code, record and transcribe the visit, log vitals, and start a prescription.

In another application of the same badge, the built-in camera scanned a brainstorm board with ideas for an office revamp, and made a suggestion: add some plants.

The two devices are a starting point. The bigger opportunity, the company says, is all the tasks and workflows where a PC or phone gets in the way or isn’t practical to use.

A display inside the Microsoft Applied Sciences lab gave a hint of where things could be headed, including smart glasses, rings, earbuds, scanners, and other form factors.

“This is a way to put computing in those spaces easily and cheaply, but more importantly, it’s a way to put your agent into those spaces,” Bathiche said.

In the coming months, companies including AccuWeather, Best Buy, CVS Health, Levi’s, and Target are expected to begin pilots of devices based on the reference designs.

The operating system is the Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform, or MDEP, an enterprise version of Android that Microsoft developed for devices including Teams meeting-room hardware.

The company says it chose MDEP over Windows deliberately, to run on smaller, lower-power devices while keeping the management and security features IT departments expect: patch and over-the-air updates, device integrity, Microsoft Defender, Intune, and Entra ID sign-in.

What’s different

At first glance, the concept devices raise a couple of natural questions:

1) Why not just use a phone? Bathiche said companies have tried, particularly in healthcare, and it didn’t go well. Asking a nurse to pull up patient data on a personal device felt wrong to patients and created security problems.

A purpose-built device, he said, has a far smaller attack surface, can last a week on a single charge, and can orient its camera for face-to-face interaction rather than forcing the user to hold up a screen.

“Computers are continuing to specialize,” he said, describing a trend he has been calling out for years now. “Computers are continuing to come closer to you.”

2) Isn’t the desk device basically an Amazon Echo? Here, Bathiche drew a distinction: Alexa is one agent trying to do everything, while Solara is designed for each organization’s own agents, secured and managed by its IT department.

The practical difference was visible in the demo. The desk hub pairs with a PC over Bluetooth, hands off tasks between the two, and keeps them locked in sync. An Echo Show sitting next to the same PC wouldn’t know it was there.

Pushing the timeline

Still, the project is very early, by Microsoft’s own admission.