Humane. Rabbit. Meta. All these companies and more are working hard to invent a new category of tech, one that doesn’t live as an app on your phone but actually creates room for other AI-powered gadgets. The AI gadget revolution could be huge.

So far? It’s not going great. And in fact, as Google and Apple in particular find new ways to add powerful new models to their existing products, it seems as though the big winner in the AI race might be the phone already in your pocket.

On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge’s Allison Johnson tells us about her experiments with AI gadgets and her attempt to make a flip phone into a chatbot-toting wearable. (It worked! Kind of!) We also discuss which other gadgets might make good AI gadgets, without requiring a total reinvention.

After that, The Verge’s Alex Heath joins to talk about the many, many AI announcements coming out of Meta. Is CEO Mark Zuckerberg trying to build an AI titan, or is this all in service of making the metaverse happen? And is it possible that Meta’s smart glasses are the sleeper hit of the early AI gadgets?

Finally, we answer a question from the Vergecast Hotline all about Microsoft’s antitrust potential. Somehow, this ends in a very fun metaphor about YouTube.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, first on AI gadgets:

• Can Rabbit’s R1 outsmart the smartphone assistants? Let’s find out!
• The future of AI gadgets is just phones
• A morning with the Rabbit R1: a fun, funky, unfinished AI gadget
• Humane AI Pin review: not even close
• The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses actually make the future look cool

And on Meta AI:

• Meta’s battle with ChatGPT begins now
• Q&A: Mark Zuckerberg on winning the AI race
• Meta wants to be the Microsoft of headsets
• Zuckerberg says it will take Meta years to make money from generative AI

And on Microsoft’s regulatory issues:

• Microsoft Edge and Bing avoid the EU’s latest regulations
• Microsoft Edge is now an ‘AI browser,’ apparently
• Microsoft splits Teams from Office as antitrust pressure ramps up
• Microsoft and OpenAI deal may face antitrust investigations in the EU