Convergent Design in the Age of AI

We’re in the early stages of a new age of convergent design—one that relies heavily on emerging service ecosystems that will support AI-enabled products. Exploring new form factors to facilitate our relationships with AI is now more important than ever.  

This is the backdrop before which Rabbit Inc launched its new product, one many considered to be the darling of 2024’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Jesse Lyu, the founder of Rabbit Inc, set an ambitious goal to rethink how we engage with digital services. Thus, the Rabbit r1 was born: a ChatGPT-based personal assistant that the company believes could render many smartphone functions obsolete. It’s a small, sleek device backed by an operating system that personalizes experiences to individual users and is enabled through a natural language interface. 

Hopping on the bandwagon 

It’s no surprise that the ambition to displace the smartphone as a catch-all in everyday life attracts niche audiences like me and my colleagues at frog. We are pre-early adopters of new technologies—a category known as “innovators” in terms of uptake speed. Essentially, when organizations embrace a new technology, they do so at one of five rates: innovators, early adopters, the early majority, the late majority and laggards. As innovators, we embrace technology before it has time to mature in the marketplace. We value the play and experimentation that comes with immature products that value visionary ambition over market stability. This appetite for change is what keeps us on the cutting edge of radical change for the human experience.   

Innovators 2.5%
Early Adopters 13.5%
Early Majority 34%
Late Majority 34%
Laggards 16% 

Five adopter categories in order of uptake speed (Source) 

Yet, while it’s exciting to engage with new tech before it goes mainstream, being a pre-early adopter is not without its disappointments. In the case of the Rabbit r1, my obsession with making this device useful has admittedly been unsuccessful so far. Despite the hurdles to finding a place for this device in my life, hope persists. I am convinced the Rabbit r1 can realign my workflow with the universe, but I need a simpler way in to engage with this product—or, rather, an excuse to build a relationship. 

For the Rabbit r1, intimacy was not the goal. Developing intimacy with a new product does not require 100% engagement; it only requires an emergent obsession. An intimacy-focused product enables people to easily integrate it into their day-to-day rituals. But, not everyone’s daily interactions are the same. Instead of trying to appeal to the public-at-large as part of CES, the real launch should have targeted a specific need or type of person. 

After all, we’re all pre-early adopters in the right situation. We all have a passion that AI-enabled devices can be used to improve. For example, the Rabbit r1 could have targeted the romantic, obsessive and persistent reader struggling to stay engaged in the digital age, the rising age of corporeal transformation and mass morphology through silicon. This would have enabled the company to target readers of all skill levels and intentions who are seeking conversations with their collections, unlocking a companion experience to the analog. Moving beyond the advanced reader, this product could have focused on the college student, creating a new pre-early adopter market in several educational situations. How would a more focused strategy have impacted the services layer and the potential of the LAM (Large Action Model)? How would the form factor have been different? 

The Rabbit r1: a skeptical optimist’s take 

Okay, let’s stop critiquing the Rabbit r1 for a moment and consider its potential. There is much here to admire, too. Firstly, as pre-early adopters, we should expect to suffer a range of annoyances as we test these first-of-a-kind products and attempt to make them part of our lives. When Jesse Lyu introduced the Rabbit r1 to the world and revealed Teenage Engineering as the hardware design partner, it added an air of credibility and completeness to the product. For years now, Teenage Engineering has been greatly admired by the music and design communities, popular for their fresh take on novel UX in music production and Ramsian hardware aesthetics. The hardware design and the USD 200 price tag are the Rabbit r1’s main redeeming qualities—and perhaps the biggest reasons to remain optimistic.  

Getting people hooked on products means getting them invested in some aspect of the experience. Setting a high aesthetic bar will keep some people invested for a short while, making them feel the ongoing fulfillment of the original promise. But it would have been better to feel that satisfaction and intimacy sooner. The product design is bold and playful, but how was the brief to Teenage Engineering more in line with the ambition stated above to engage people with specific passions, as in readers, audiophiles, plant lovers and so on? Would the device have taken a different, more subtle approach? The point is that as we channel the power of AI through physical devices, we need to consider the range of human modalities these devices will serve to fully engage both intellect and senses.

After spending a few months with the Rabbit r1, I am sorry to report that there is not much to share. Though, while my own r1 devices are often sitting uncharged and unused, I remain a skeptical optimist. This is a mindset most of us should adopt these days. It’s easy to go down the “rabbit hole” so to speak, which is to focus on flaws, battery life, lack of video recording options, poor load times and so on. Instead, I feel we should explore what might have been—and what still could be. Speculating in this way is a means for uncovering its true potential. Rabbit could have decided to launch the r1 with a more refined Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that better reflects the ambition of the LAM. Still, the company says they will be committed to ongoing improvement.

Quixotic MVPs lead to bad experiences 

As pre-early adopters, we believe in promises to deliver continual improvements. But we believe Rabbit has the potential to make something people love immediately. A bit more focus and a promise to fundamentally change one experience would be a better go-to-market strategy. Remember when Amazon became the world’s first online “bookstore” and then moved on to own convenience at scale? Their focus on books allowed them to build intimacy with devoted customers, and in time, fueled the company’s ability to expand.  

In contrast, quixotic MVPs with big promise and little practical use lead to bad experiences. By trying to take on too much, the r1 suffers from a lack of focus. Music, Gen AI, ridesharing and consumables are all great LAM-powered features to start with, but why so many at once? Furthermore, why simply replicate the core features of a mobile device?  

Don’t launch a product to prove the breadth of a technology. If you want the public to get excited about the concept of the LAM, launch a product consumers desire. After that, begin meeting a wider range of needs as developers in the services business recognize the true, focused potential of the LAM.  

At frog, a convergent approach that seamlessly integrates digital, physical and service design is a central passion. We’ve brought numerous first-of-a-kind products to market. In our experience, a launch focused on a specific use case would have helped to better set expectations and clarify the roadmap. In particular, the launch would have benefited from a use case closer to home that does not require us to replace our mobile devices overnight. In this case, the LAM starts with a closed set of behaviors and artifacts. How might this have played out differently? What if the r1 went to market with clearer offering and promise?  

Let’s try a little speculative design as critique by exploring a Rabbit r1 pitch that ticks all the right boxes. Join us in envisioning an r1 that is not just a multi-functional device, but a specialized tool connected to services that meet your unique needs perfectly. If you’ll indulge us for a moment, Jesse, here’s our pitch: 

A speculative mission for the Rabbit r1: Focused excellence 

Meet the Rabbit r1, your new knowledge companion. Rabbit is focused on reclaiming the joy of real-world experiences. The aim is to slow down the pace of technology to the speed of everyday life: conversational, contextual, coherent. Real-world interactions and experiences come to life without complicated user interfaces that distract from the task at hand. Rabbit strives to help you be more naturally in the flow of the moment.  

 The Reading Companion 

Ideal for students, academics and researchers, the Rabbit r1 is a reading companion to enhance your knowledge building skills as you read your favorite books, blogs, magazines and more.  

The r1 will read with you, always available to discuss any topic or answer any question. It is like your own personal book club. The r1 redefines your reading experience by focusing solely on becoming the ultimate reading support tool. Imagine real-time insights and personalized book recommendations based on your reading habits, seamlessly integrated physical and digital library access and the convenience of managing that collection in one place. This is the Rabbit r1, tailored to transforming how you engage with reading, offering an immersive, personalized and user-friendly reading journey like never before.

Key Features 

• Passage Scan: Scan passages and get relevant information about citations and summaries. 

• Dynamic Discourse: Read passages aloud to the r1 to start a conversation with various types of minds and analytical styles to discuss what you are reading. 

• Catalogue My Library: Scan the spines on your shelf and the r1 will build a knowledge base that creates a virtual library of summaries. 

• Cultural Lens: Read a book through various cultural lenses with the r1 to get a broader perspective of the content. 

Coming Soon: The Music Companion 

Music lover? If you’re eager for a revolutionary way to discover new sounds, the r1 will soon be the ideal listening and music discovery companion. Stay tuned for the new Rabbit r1, which complements your music experiences, revealing relevant information about your favorite songs and intuitively guiding you to new artists as you listen.  

Embrace the future of focused excellence with the Rabbit r1.  

Experience and modalities in an app-less world 

As is evident in the speculative pitch above, the Rabbit r1 could have launched with this basic companion experience: the reading companion. The r1’s AI can scan pages for keywords, handle literary conversations in multiple analytical modes, teach you how to read your favorite books in other languages and recommend new reading after understanding your habits.   

In the race to make the smartphone obsolete, such focused opportunities for intimacy are missed. This basic reading companion experience could differentiate the r1 from mobile devices in the short term. But the start of a revolution comes when you get good at one thing and then expand that expertise and know-how into other experiences. Because it’s not just about the breadth of the LAM and other Large Language Models (LLMs), it’s how you guide people through first-time use. The reading companion could evolve into the quintessential companion AI device, with a range of form factors or hardware additions relevant to specific uses.

People need to be educated about how to use new technologies. Simplifying such experiences within specifics modes (e.g., gardening, exercising, cooking, etc.) can attract and engage people in moments that matter to them. We are so much more than mere users, customers and consumers. We are scholars, producer, cooks, educators, explorers, gamers, drivers, builders, caregivers, hosts and the list goes on. 

Final thoughts 

We pre-early adopters have a lot of patience for first-of-a-kind devices. In fact, if we’re honest, we kind of live for them. They don’t need to do much to get us excited and see the possibilities. They just need to build intimacy through relevant experiences, delivered reliably.   

It’s tough to be the first on the market. We salute companies such as Rabbit as they try new things and lead the charge into the future of convergent design in the age of Gen AI. If you are working on a first-of-a-kind device that leverages Gen AI, we would love to help and share what we have learned. Reach out and share your experiences.