Microsoft launches Project Solara AI agent platform at Build 2026

Microsoft Unveils Project Solara AI Agent Platform at Build 2026

Microsoft on Tuesday revealed Project Solara at its Build 2026 developer conference in San Francisco, introducing a new chip-to-cloud platform built on Android and designed to power devices that run AI agents rather than traditional applications.techradar

A New Category of AI Devices

Steven Bathiche, a technical fellow who leads Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group, took the stage during CEO Satya Nadella’s opening keynote at the Fort Mason Center to demonstrate the platform’s ambitions. “The next computer is not one device — it is all these devices working as one system,” Bathiche told attendees.microsoft

Project Solara includes two reference hardware designs meant to illustrate how AI agents can operate beyond conventional PCs and phones. The first is a small desktop hub resembling a wireless speaker that allows users to interact with files and access their Cloud PC. The second is a portable, badge-sized device worn on a lanyard, roughly the size of a large business card, that Microsoft demonstrated as a tool for healthcare professionals retrieving patient information and warehouse workers pulling up inventory data.techradar

Microsoft does not plan to ship the devices itself. Instead, the company expects hardware partners to build on the reference designs, with companies including AccuWeather, Best Buy, CVS Health, Levi’s, and Target set to begin pilots in the coming months.geekwire

Agents Beyond the PC

The announcement positions Project Solara as Microsoft’s answer to a question the company has been exploring for years: how to bring AI capabilities to environments where laptops and smartphones are impractical. By building on Android rather than Windows, Microsoft is targeting a category of lightweight, purpose-built hardware that can serve as always-available conduits to cloud-powered AI agents tied together through Azure.techradar

The reveal came alongside other major Build announcements including the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box with one petaflop of AI compute, new local AI reasoning models in the Aion family, and a live appearance from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who joined from Computex in Taipei to discuss the collaboration between the two companies on agent-focused hardware. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon also appeared on stage with Nadella to discuss agent-focused devices built around Project Solara.tomsguide

“This is the broader opportunity for the ecosystem,” Bathiche said, describing how agents can break out of the traditional PC form factor.techradar