Rabbit Is Back With OS3, an Agent That Runs on Your Own Devices

Rabbit has announced OS3, a standalone "agentic operating system" that runs on the screens people already own instead of dedicated hardware. It is a sharp pivot for a company that argued two years ago that an AI assistant needed its own gadget. OS3 also arrives as a software update for the R1, but the device is not required: it can be reached through a desktop browser, Telegram on a phone, or iMessage.

What OS3 does

OS3 is a cloud platform that connects to desktop software, files and web pages through a local agent node installed on Windows, Mac or Linux. Using Rabbit's DLAM (Direct Large Action Model) technology, it can carry out local software tasks and write and debug code on its own. The interface is a single continuous chat stream, which founder and CEO Jesse Lyu calls a "brain dump" interface.

Bring your own model

OS3 runs on a Bring Your Own Key model: there is no monthly subscription, but users supply their own API keys from providers such as OpenAI or Anthropic, or link local open-source models. Lyu says he uses it himself — a weekly Excel report on R1 sales that once sent him back to his PC is now handled by a Telegram message from his phone.

Numbers and the rocky years

The R1, launched at CES 2024, drew scathing reviews and a 3/10 score from WIRED. Lyu says it was still a financial success: more than 100,000 units sold worldwide, return rates under 5 percent and a 45 to 50 percent hardware margin. "Internally, from an engineering perspective—we didn't make the wrong bet," he says; Rabbit has raised around $60 million and employs 15 people. The path was not smooth: a planned India launch was stymied by regulations, and some employees went on strike over unpaid wages, but Lyu says the company secured more funding. Rabbit is no longer manufacturing the R1 and has no plans for an R2; its next hardware release, due within "months," is a Cyberdeck for "vibe coding" that will run OS3.

Privacy and availability

Rabbit says the local agent does not store, copy or sell data: conversations and memory logs live on Rabbit's servers, while file contents stay on the user's machine. The caveat is that when a task requires model reasoning, the prompts pass through Rabbit's servers to the user's model provider. Anyone can try OS3 starting today.