Rabbit has released OS3, a standalone AI agent that runs across Windows, Mac, and Linux without requiring the company's R1 hardware. The startup, best known for the widely panned $199 R1 pocket device, is repositioning itself as a software company. Founder Jesse Lyu confirmed to Wired that Rabbit has stopped manufacturing the R1, marking the end of the hardware bet that defined the company's first two years.
OS3 is what Rabbit calls an 'agentic operating system.' It runs in the cloud but executes tasks locally on a user's machines, and a single account can be linked to up to five devices. The system decides on its own which devices, files, apps, and AI models to invoke for a given task, and it lets users bring their own preferred models rather than locking them to a single provider.
Access points are deliberately broad. Users can reach OS3 through a dedicated desktop site, through paired messaging apps including Telegram and iMessage, or through the R1 device itself for existing owners. The messaging-app entry point is the more interesting choice — it lets the agent live inside the surfaces people already use for text, rather than demanding a new interface.
Key facts
- 01Rabbit's new OS3 agentic operating system runs in the cloud but executes locally on Windows, Mac, and Linux machines.
- 02Users can link up to five devices per account and bring their own preferred AI models into OS3.
- 03Founder Jesse Lyu confirmed to Wired that Rabbit has stopped manufacturing the R1 device.
- 04A new vibe-coding 'cyberdeck' running OS3 is slated to launch within months.
- 05OS3 is also accessible via a dedicated desktop site and paired messaging apps including Telegram and iMessage.
The shift is a full inversion of Rabbit's original pitch. The R1, launched in early 2024, was sold as dedicated AI hardware that would replace the smartphone paradigm with a Large Action Model capable of operating apps on a user's behalf. Reviewers found the device slow, buggy, and largely dependent on a small set of scripted integrations. Sales collapsed, and the company spent the following two years walking back the original vision.
OS3 reads as the product Rabbit arguably should have built first: software that meets users on the devices they already own, orchestrates whichever models work best for the task, and doesn't require anyone to buy a $199 puck to try it. The five-device account limit suggests Rabbit is targeting individual power users and small teams rather than enterprise deployments.
Rabbit is not exiting hardware entirely. Lyu told Wired the company is now building a 'cyberdeck' aimed at vibe coding — the loose term for prompting-driven software development — that will run OS3 when it launches within months. The framing positions future Rabbit hardware as an optional accessory to the OS3 software layer rather than the other way around.
On privacy, Rabbit says OS3 will not store, copy, use, or sell user data, though it will retain chats and the memories derived from them on its servers. Any third-party AI providers connected through OS3 will handle data under their own privacy terms — a standard disclaimer that puts the onus on users to vet whichever models they plug in.
The obvious counterweight is execution risk. Rabbit's track record on shipping software that matches its marketing is poor, and the agent category is now crowded with better-resourced competitors from every major lab. An agentic OS that promises to pick its own devices, apps, and models is a hard product to make reliable, and the R1's launch demonstrated what happens when Rabbit ships something before it works. The cyberdeck timeline of 'within months' is also vague enough to slip.
Rabbit's pivot is a useful data point on where the consumer AI-hardware experiment stands two years in. The R1, Humane's Ai Pin, and the broader wave of dedicated AI gadgets all struggled against the same wall: smartphones are already the device, and asking users to carry a second one for AI is a hard sell when the AI can just run on the first. Unbundling the agent from the hardware is the rational move, and Rabbit is the first of that cohort to formally concede the point. Whether OS3 is good enough to survive on its own merits is a separate question — but the strategic reset is the right one.
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