Rabbit AI’s new tool can control your Android phone, but I’m not sure how I feel about letting it control my smartphone
- Shortly after HP acquired Humane AI, Rabbit is launching Android app
- Much like other AI agents the idea is that this Rabbit app is an agent to carry out tasks for you
- It’s currently being tested for Android ahead of a teased release
Rabbit is showing off a new AI agent that can automatically carry out tasks for you on Android devices. This might be because Rabbit is is keen to show that it has another trick after Humane’s sale to HP renewed focus and questions about the company’s Rabbit R1 hardware. Perhaps aware that the hardware approach wasn’t selling as well as anticipated, Rabbit has hopped away from hardware to smartphones, where far more people are likely to experiment with AI tools.
Rabbit’s Android agent doesn’t just remake the same features of so many AI chatbots, either. Instead of summarizing Wikipedia pages, Rabbit’s agent can coordinate tasks across different apps based on your prompts. You could ask it to write and send dinner party invitations on WhatsApp, pick a meal from a recipe app, or assemble a grocery list based on that recipe. It can also find and save a YouTube music playlist for when you eat and even download a game from the Play Store for after the meal.
To really show off Rabbit’s AI agent, the demonstration put together by the company showed how the agent could find a business idea you saved in Google Keep and write a revenue plan in Google Docs before sharing it with someone in your contact list.
Rabbit hole
This “doing” AI, as opposed to the “knowing” AI, is usually what people imagine when you describe an AI assistant. But, like any new tech, it’s not perfect yet. Rabbit’s demo shows that while the agent can pull off these tasks, sometimes it stumbles. Some actions take longer than expected, formatting can get weird, and every now and then, it makes a choice that raises an eyebrow.
Rabbit’s agent isn’t generally available yet. Based on the demonstration, once it is, you’ll be able to get the app from the Play Store and link it to Android apps once you give permission. You’ll then be able to prompt the AI to complete a task for you, and it will run in the background, which is a nice change from some AI tools that demand you leave the app open while it runs.
Rabbit will have to contend with more competition with this move. A growing wave of AI tools offers to take control of your devices and automate your tasks.
OpenAI has been developing the app-controlling Operator, and Anthropic is testing a feature called computer use for its Claude AI assistant, which allows an AI to interact with desktop software and the internet. There’s also third-party Browser Use, which specializes in navigating the web, filling out forms, and completing requests online. Rabbit isn’t imitating any of them precisely, focusing on Android devices and apps. Instead, Rabbit’s agent seems geared chiefly toward everyday use compared to OpenAI and Anthropic’s emphasis on professional activities.
This reimagining of what Rabbit can offer is exactly the sort of reinvention many have suggested could keep Rabbit independent. The standalone R1 didn’t have much momentum after it came out and often felt like a limited smartphone with an odd feature set. Now, instead of asking people to buy new hardware, Rabbit is meeting them where they already are: on their phones.
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Shortly after HP acquired Humane AI, Rabbit is launching Android app Much like other AI agents the idea is that this Rabbit app is an agent to carry out tasks for you It’s currently being tested for Android ahead of a teased release Rabbit is showing off a new AI…
