AI 电子宠物正在到来

尽管 AI 已经大量进入人们的手机和电脑，但它在专用设备上的表现总体并不成功。不过，在未来一年里，两家大型 AI 公司——Meta 和 OpenAI——将试图改变这一局面。而且它们显然在押注类似的路径：先通过可爱的软件 Agent 测试用户对实体硬件的兴趣。

“硬件很难做”是科技行业的一句口头禅。Friend 和 Humane AI Pin 等专用 AI 设备主要带来了挫败感与反弹，而随着公众对 AI 的愤怒情绪升温，这种反弹可能只会更加严重。不过，Meta 和 OpenAI 都在继续推进。根据一份公开文件，OpenAI 正与知名前 Apple 设计师 Jony Ive 合作，其产品计划最早在 2027 年 2 月之后出货。Meta 则希望更早推出一款类似吊坠的设备，目标是在今年假日购物季之前发布。

尽管 OpenAI 的硬件没有在今年 DevDay 上亮相，该公司推出了一个名为 Dots 的重要 AI Agent 平台，其中包含可个性化定制、带有眼睛的彩色团块形象。在主题演讲后的媒体问答中，当被问及 Dots 是否会进入未来的实体硬件设备时，OpenAI CEO Sam Altman 回答称，这“似乎是一个非常合理的推测——我们未来某天可能会这么做”，但拒绝提供更多细节。

与此同时，Meta 则更直接地将其硬件与最近发布的 Muse Agent 绑定在一起。这款设备被 CEO Mark Zuckerberg 比作钥匙扣，名为 Muse Charm；其屏幕上显示着外形可爱的 Muse AI Agent，使它颇有电子宠物的感觉。Zuckerberg 在台上表示：“我们在这个小家伙里塞进了很多技术。所以，如果你没有戴眼镜，这将是迄今为止与 Muse 交流、并向它展示你周围正在发生什么的最快方式。”

OpenAI 和 Meta 很可能都从其他公司的失败硬件发布中吸取了教训，而它们由此形成的策略似乎是：先低调推出 AI Agent，再正式推出硬件。它们解决硬件难题的方法，是先通过让人们习惯 AI Agent 来预热市场，并希望用户能够口口相传：“没错，它们现在真的能用了。”一旦人们发现这些可爱 Agent 的价值，甚至对它们产生情感依附，就可能希望以更具实体感的形式拥有它们。Friend 等其他公司也采取了类似的“软件优先”策略，但 Friend 的定位主要是陪伴型聊天机器人，而非生产力工具。

在 DevDay 的媒体问答中，当被问及 Dots 是否有可能成为与 ChatGPT 交互的主要界面时，OpenAI 核心产品负责人 Thibault Sottiaux 表示，公司将“在现有 ChatGPT 的基础上不断演进，使其很快成为一名出色的个人助理”。他还表示，随着人们能够通过电子邮件、短信或电话联系自己的 AI Agent，交互入口“终有一天都会变得模糊”。Sottiaux 说，这将成为“你生活中自然而然的一部分”。

Altman 押注于这样一个事实：与此前市场上的 Agent 版本相比，Dots 将更适合处理长期任务。他在周二的媒体问答中表示：“这感觉像是一个始终在线的帮手、协作者……你可以把非常大块的工作交给它；它会逐渐了解你，并随着时间推移主动提供帮助。”

两家公司的核心赌注都是：在经历多年表现并不出色的 AI Agent 后，它们终于能够交付一款有用的日常工具，并借此打入更广泛的大众市场。但在 Muse 于 Facebook Marketplace 中出现令人担忧的滥用情况，以及 Dots 的语音演示在 DevDay 上出了岔子之后，显然还有不少工作要做。

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 appetites 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 toward 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 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 with personalizable colored blobs with eyes. During a Q&A with reporters after the keynote, when asked whether Dots would make their way into a future physical hardware device, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman replied that that “seems like a very reasonable thing to assume we may do someday,” declining to offer further details.

Meta, meanwhile, is more directly tying its hardware to the recently released Muse agent. Compared by CEO Mark Zuckerberg to a keychain, the device is called the Muse Charm, and it bears a screen featuring its cuddly-looking Muse AI agent, giving it the air of a Tamagotchi. “We’ve packed a lot of technology into this little guy,” Zuckerberg said onstage. “So, if you’re not wearing glasses, this is going to be by far the fastest way to talk to your Muse and to show it what’s going on around you.”

Both OpenAI and Meta have likely learned from other companies’ failed hardware rollouts, and their resulting strategy seems to be soft-launching AI agents before hard-launching the hardware. Their solution for hacking the hardware problem is to prime the market by getting people used to AI agents, hoping people will spread the word that “yes, they really work now.” Once people find value in — and even get attached to — the cutesy agents, they might want them in a more physical form. Other companies, like Friend, have taken similar software-first strategies, but Friend was positioned mainly as a companion chatbot, not a productivity tool.

When asked during the DevDay press Q&A whether Dots will likely become the primary interface for interacting with ChatGPT, Thibault Sottiaux, OpenAI’s head of core products, said the company would be “evolving ChatGPT in place to be this incredible personal assistant very soon” and that he believes that as people are able to reach their AI agents via email, text, or phone call, the point of interaction is “all going to blur at some point.” It’ll be a “natural part of your life,” Sottiaux said.

Altman is banking on the fact that Dots will be more useful for long-term tasks than previous iterations of agents on the market have been. “This feels like an always-on helper, collaborator … that you can give very large pieces of work to and it gets to know you and helps proactively over time,” he said during the Tuesday press Q&A.

Both companies’ main bet is that, after years of less-than-impressive AI agents, they can finally deliver a useful everyday tool that will break through to a broader public market. But after Muse’s concerning exploits in Facebook Marketplace, and a Dots voice demo that went awry at DevDay, there’s apparently still some work to do.

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• Hayden Field

• AI

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• OpenAI

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