Microsoft teases new era of AI-driven devices at software developer conference

SAN FRANCISCO, June 2 (Reuters) - Microsoft MSFT.O, the company known for its operating system and apps, on Tuesday hinted at a new wave of gadgets that will use AI agents designed to complete specific tasks in healthcare and retail rather than traditional apps.

At Microsoft’s annual software developer conference in San Francisco, Microsoft executives revealed Project Solara, a family of prototypes that includes devices around the size of a smart speaker or keycard badge, based on chips from Qualcomm QCOM.O and MediaTek 2454.TW.

The devices have screens and microphones, but instead of running an operating system and apps like a smartphone, Microsoft executives showed them hosting AI agents that talk to cloud-computing systems to carry out specific tasks, such as documenting a medical visit with a nurse.

“It’s a new platform, but perhaps more importantly, it’s a set of new platform rules that don’t, in some sense, hem in what you can imagine,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during a keynote address.

Microsoft is competing against rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic to sell cloud-based AI tools for coding and other tasks, while also trying to nudge Microsoft customers toward running AI technologies on the fleets of laptop and desktop computers running its Windows operating systems.

Microsoft on Tuesday showcased a new computer called the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box loaded with an Nvidia NVDA.O chip.

Nadella said the forthcoming computer was a “dream machine.” There is a wait list to buy the computer and Nadella said he is on it, too.

The new machine uses an Nvidia chip, unveiled on Monday, to help bring AI directly to PCs. The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box follows a laptop that Microsoft introduced with Nvidia this week, and Microsoft executives showed it running an AI model with 120 billion parameters — a rough measure of a model’s complexity — that most PCs would not be able to load.

The new wave of PCs is priced to compete with Apple’s AAPL.O premium offerings, and their announcement helped boost shares of both Microsoft and major PC makers such as Dell Technologies DELL.N, though analysts said it may take time for businesses to adopt the new machines.

Microsoft on Tuesday said it is developing new tools to help Windows run OpenClaw, a piece of open-source software that can direct groups of AI bots called agents to carry out everyday tasks for users.

Many of the tools Microsoft showed on Tuesday are aimed at making OpenClaw, which has gained popularity in China and helped rival Apple sell Mac computers, safe enough for businesses to use on compute