Microsoft has revealed it’s working on a new mobile-related platform called Project Solara, which it demonstrated on stage during its Build 2026 developer conference.
It’s closer to Android than Windows Mobile, and not only is one of the first prototypes closely linked to a smartphone, it may come to cutting-edge wearables including smartglasses in the future too.
What is Project Solara?
Microsoft has had a few goes at pulling attention away from Apple, Google, and Samsung with phones and other mobile devices in the past.
Unfortunately, whether it’s through the acquisition of Nokia, the creation of Windows Phone, or the release of devices like the Microsoft Surface Duo, it has never quite succeeded.
Project Solara isn’t a smartphone operating system, although Microsoft’s platform is based on Android Open Source Project (AOSP), but an app-less, AI agent-first platform made for both mobile and stationary devices.
It’s also, at this stage at least, not aimed at consumers. Microsoft’s targeting businesses with Project Solara, but the familiarity of the prototypes shown during Build 2026, and Microsoft’s vision for its future, suggest it may not stay that way forever.
Agentic ID badge
Microsoft demonstrated a prototype ID badge concept equipped with Project Solara, which turned it into a mini phone you wear on a lanyard.
The ID badge has a touchscreen, a fingerprint sensor, a camera, a Qualcomm processor, microphones and speakers, Wi-Fi, and 5G connectivity. It may look like an ID badge, but it sounds a lot like a phone.
Instead of Android or Windows, it uses Project Solara to put Microsoft’s Copilot AI to work. Microsoft’s demo video showed the prototype badge working like a phone in a healthcare environment.
The camera scanned information, AI agents responded to voice commands, tasks were received and displayed on the screen, and a fingerprint sensor kept all the data safe.
Other Project Solara hardware
The other Project Solara prototype demonstrated was a smart display reminiscent of some Amazon Echo Show devices, and powered by MediaTek. It was also aimed at businesses.
In the background of Microsoft’s promotional material for Project Solara, there are outlines of other possible devices, including smartwatches, smart rings, earbuds, and smartglasses.
Microsoft’s CVP of Applied Sciences, Steven Bathiche, writes:
We imagine a diverse ecosystem of agent-first devices, from small to large, from fixed to hypermobile, from personal to professional.
This is where computing and new types of computers are headed.
A device on a desk. A device worn in the field. A device in a hospital, a store, a factory, a school, or a home. Each one becomes a new access point for your agents, and a new way to bring productivity, intelligence, and assistance into places where computing has not reached as naturally before.
For agent builders: Think big. The agents you are creating today will not be limited to the screens and devices we know today. They will be able to show up across a variety of new form factors—devices designed around them, tuned for them, and deployed into the moments where they can create the most value.
Microsoft platform, not hardware?
All of this shows Project Solara is very much a mobile platform from Microsoft, just all dressed up in agentic AI finery.
Microsoft didn’t say it’s going to build any hardware, and instead the prototypes at Build 2026 show developers and hardware manufacturers what’s possible with Project Solara.
However, it’s also clear from Bathiche that it may not always restrict Solara to businesses, or to one type of hardware, and Microsoft definitely has its eyes on the AI future.
It means if it’s a success, and AI agents take off in the way Microsoft, Google, and others expect, it may reach a device you use in your daily life in the future, either at home or at work.
