The gadget era of AI is officially over ↗

Rabbit just killed the R1. Sort of.

On Tuesday Rabbit rolled out OS3, a cloud-based “agentic operating system” that runs across Windows, Mac, Linux, a desktop website, Telegram, and iMessage. No R1 required. Founder Jesse Lyu told WIRED the company has stopped manufacturing the R1 entirely. The next hardware bet is a vibe-coding “cyberdeck” that runs OS3, arriving “within months.”

The irony is thick. Rabbit pioneered the trick of driving apps on your behalf through virtual machines — the move that got the R1 crucified in 2024 (WIRED’s own review: 3/10). Now it’s the standard playbook. Meta’s Muse agent just ran into the same fight with Amazon over VM-driven shopping on a user’s behalf. Lyu, to WIRED: “We’ve been through all of this a year and a half ago.”

Also worth noting: Lyu says the “flop” shipped 100,000-plus units with under 5 percent returns at 45 to 50 percent hardware margins. The most mocked gadget of 2024 was a profitable field test.

Being 18 months early in AI looks exactly like being wrong. The difference is whether you survive until everyone else arrives.