Rabbit, US$200 AI-powered gadget, becomes unexpected hit after CES 2024 launch by Chinese entrepreneur

A handheld gadget powered by artificial intelligence (AI) developed by start-up Rabbit Inc is gaining quick popularity after capturing the imagination of consumers during its launch this month as a new way of interacting with AI beyond smartphones and computers.

Rabbit, started by Chinese technology entrepreneur Jesse Lyu Cheng, said its R1 device priced at US$199, which was unveiled in Las Vegas the same week as CES 2024 earlier this month, has seen five batches of pre-orders sell out since its debut.

The Santa Monica-based company did not exhibit at CES, but the timely launch has brought widespread attention from consumers and tech media alike to the palm-sized orange box that is meant to be another complementary device in users' gadget arsenals.

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Last week, the company said on X that it was starting pre-orders for a sixth batch of 50,000 Rabbit R1 devices, after its latest batch of 10,000 devices sold out.

Since the 2022 launch of ChatGPT, which thrust large language models (LLMs) and generative AI into the public consciousness, start-ups and big tech companies around the globe have raced to explore the next generation of AI-powered devices that could revolutionise the ways humans and machines interact, transcending experiences offered by today's app-focused smartphones.

Handset makers like Xiaomi and Huawei Technologies, along with laptop makers such as Dell, Lenovo, HP are all banking on AI-powered smart gadgets this year.

Lyu, the CEO of Rabbit, envisioned bringing a dedicated AI-powered device to billions of consumers.

In his product launch video, the founder said that although recent achievements in LLMs made it much easier for machines to understand people, "these [digital] assistants still struggle to get things done".

"We wanted to find a way for our AI to trigger actions on behalf of users across all environments ... iOS, Android and desktop," he said in the video.

In collaboration with the design firm Teenage Engineering, the luminous orange-coloured gadget has a vintage look reminiscent of a 1990s handheld video game console.

It has a pressable scroll wheel for accessing the gadget's built-in functions, which includes voice controls when clicked.

Above the wheel is a rotating camera for capturing photos and videos, which sits to the right of a 2.88-inch touch screen. The size and a weight of just 115 grams makes it easily pocketable, as well.

The stand-alone device, which does not require a connection to another device to function, runs on a 2.3GHz MediaTek processor and includes 4GB of random access memory (RAM) and 128GB of storage.

Yet the real selling point of the R1 is its unique operating system based on what the company calls a "large action model", which is a proprietary foundation model designed in house that is meant to learn user intentions and behaviour.

After it sees how a user interacts with a food delivery or ride-hailing app, for example, the machine can perform the same actions on command.

Since the R1 launch video was posted on YouTube on January 9, it has received more than 4.8 million views and 56,000 likes.

As of December, Rabbit has raised US$36 million from US, Canadian and South Korean investors, according to data from PitchBook, which tracks deals in the private equity market.

Lyu studied financial mathematics at Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou and the University of Liverpool in the UK.

He spent his final year of university at the University of the Arts London, where he founded Timeet, a social media service that matched users based on their schedules. Lyu has been on Forbes' 30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs list twice, according to Chinese media reports.

Born in 1990 in Xian, capital of northwestern Shaanxi province, Lyu is known as a star tech entrepreneur. Before Rabbit, he founded a smart home AI device maker called Raven Tech in 2014.

The start-up was acquired by Chinese AI and search engine giant Baidu in February 2017, which Chinese media reported was a US$90 million deal.

Like Rabbit, Raven was also a darling for VC capital firms, and it was the only Chinese company to receive funding from California-based US technology incubator Y Combinator.

Before the acquisition, it raised US$15 million in Series A funding from DCM Ventures, ZhenFund and Matrix Partners China, according to PitchBook.

Lyu's journey with Baidu was short-lived. He left the Chinese tech giant in July 2018. He joined the board of Teenage Engineering in May 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile, and started Rabbit four months later.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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