The AI Tamagotchis are coming

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Personal AI hardware has mostly crashed and burned. OpenAI and Meta are counting on two selling points: it’s useful, and it’s cute.

Personal AI hardware has mostly crashed and burned. OpenAI and Meta are counting on two selling points: it’s useful, and it’s cute.

While AI has made plenty of inroads on people’s phones and computers, it’s largely failed in dedicated devices. But over the next year, two major AI companies, Meta and OpenAI, will attempt to change that. And they’re apparently betting on a similar path: testing appetite for physical hardware with their cutesy software agents.

“Hardware is hard” is a tech industry mantra. Dedicated AI devices like the Friend and Humane AI Pin have inspired mainly frustration and backlash, which may only worsen as public anger against AI grows. Meta and OpenAI, however, are both pushing ahead. OpenAI is working with famed ex-Apple designer Jony Ive and plans to ship no earlier than February of 2027, per a public filing.

Meta aims to launch a pendant-like device sooner, before this year’s holiday shopping season.

While OpenAI’s hardware didn’t make an appearance at this year’s DevDay, the company debuted a major new AI agent platform called Dots, complete