Today, Santa Monica-based AI startup rabbit inc. has announced the appointment of Jesper Kouthoofd, founder of teenage engineering, as Chief Design Officer at rabbit. Together with rabbit founder and CEO Jesse Lyu, Kouthoofd will guide the future product design for rabbit while maintaining his roles as head of design / CEO at teenage engineering.

“When a startup sets out to do something completely different, the most important thing is to bring the right people on board,” said Lyu. “Jesper built teenage engineering into one of the most respected and iconic forces in the industrial design world, with elegant products that are immediately recognizable. We’ve known each other and trusted each other for more than a decade, and now I’m proud to be able to work side-by-side with Jesper, who has been an inspiration to me. He and the teenage engineering team were instrumental in co-designing our first product, rabbit r1. With Jesper on board, rabbit is ready to push the boundaries of creating technology products with a deep focus on design.”

“Teaming up with Jesse to bring design to the forefront of this new AI hardware space is the right opportunity and the right time,” said Kouthoofd. “The consumer electronics industry is at a turning point where AI will create new possibilities for many people. I am excited to put all my passion into this. Forward!”

At CES 2024, rabbit announced its first product, rabbit r1, a custom-built consumer AI device running on a revolutionary natural-language operating system built on rabbit’s proprietary Large Action Model. The industrial design of r1 was developed together by rabbit and teenage engineering, and has already been widely recognized in the consumer technology industry for its retrofuture aesthetic and intuitive functionality.

Lyu and Kouthoofd first met more than 10 years ago and immediately connected over their shared passion for synthesizers, music and product design. Their collaboration officially began when Lyu’s previous company, Raven Tech, engaged teenage engineering to help design award-winning products like the Raven H and Raven R speakers. Lyu joined the board of directors of teenage engineering in 2020 and continues to serve in that role.

About rabbit

rabbit inc. is an AI startup developing a personalized operating system (OS) through a natural language interface and dedicated, affordable consumer hardware to host the OS. The OS, called rabbit OS, is capable of understanding complex user intentions, operating user interfaces, and performing actions on behalf of the user. The key technology powering rabbit OS is the Large Action Model (LAM), a new type of foundation model that understands human intentions on computers.

The company is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, and was founded by a group of researchers, engineers, and repeat entrepreneurs with extensive experience in shipping AI hardware products and operating high-performance computing (HPC) clusters to train large AI models. A two-time Y Combinator alumnus, rabbit’s Founder and CEO, Jesse Lyu, previously founded Raven Tech, a startup that pioneered conversational AI operating systems. rabbit raised $30m in funding to date from investors, including Khosla Ventures, Synergis Capital, and KAKAO Investment.

About teenage engineering

teenage engineering is developing the alternative future of consumer electronics, each invention designed to last. from reimagining music-making with the iconic OP-1 portable synthesizer and growing the synth population with the affordable pocket operator series, to rethinking listening with the OD-11 ortho directional speaker and the OB–4 magic radio, they have applied their signature mindset to a new legacy of enduring technologies. their creations have attracted collaborations with well-known artists and brands, sharing in their vision to integrate creativity into the everyday. teenage engineering was founded in 2007 and is based in stockholm, sweden.

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