Perth, Jan 13: Do you remember will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas — the guy who always seemed a few steps ahead, talking about technology, futurism and creativity long before it became mainstream?
He’s back with something that feels very on brand: a curious, slightly charming, slightly sci-fi device called MÖFO, short for Modular Omni Function Operator.
Unveiled at CES 2026 in Las Vegas in partnership with Qualcomm, MÖFO isn’t trying to be your next phone, tablet or smart speaker. In fact, it’s quite clear about what it isn’t.
It doesn’t want you swiping, tapping or digging through endless menus.
It doesn’t want to live inside apps. It wants to be the agent.
The idea behind MÖFO is that we’re entering an agentic era, where intelligence is no longer trapped behind screens. Instead of you managing technology, the technology collaborates with you.
You talk to MÖFO and it responds with voice, movement and expression.
There’s no app-hopping, no settings labyrinth, and no sense that you need a manual just to get started.
Physically, MÖFO has a body, and that’s the point. It’s designed to feel present rather than abstract. Its face is an expressive display that acts as the main interface — because the face is the interface.
Touch sensors on its head and belly let you tap, hold or even hug it to communicate.
It’s meant to feel conversational and tactile, not transactional or robotic.
Very deliberately, it’s positioned as neither a toy nor a screen-first gadget, but something entirely new.
Behind the cute exterior is some serious engineering. MÖFO is built on a new hardware foundation called Universal Perceptive Compute & Bus Architecture, or UPCBA.
Traditional devices tend to layer AI on top of operating systems that were never designed for it.
MÖFO flips that approach by designing the hardware specifically for agent-based computing.
It brings together edge AI powered by Snapdragon 8 Elite, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 5G connectivity, integrated sensors, and eight configurable USB-C ports that handle both power and data.
Those ports are central to the concept. Instead of controlling the world through layers of apps, MÖFO can physically plug into it.
Cameras, microphones, storage devices and other hardware can connect directly, allowing the agent to monitor, manage and respond without software getting in the way.
It’s a very literal interpretation of an AI that can reach out into your environment.
MÖFO also positions itself as a gatekeeper.
It doesn’t just connect to everything; it manages how things connect.
Access to sensitive hardware like cameras and microphones is handled at the device level, with the agent overseeing permissions while still being able to stretch across your digital ecosystem through its multiple connections.
For more private moments, MÖFO includes true wireless earbuds that dock directly into its head, letting you switch from public interaction to personal conversation without breaking the flow.
There’s also a companion app for preferences and configuration, but it’s intentionally lightweight, designed to support the experience rather than dominate it.
At heart, MÖFO feels like a response to screen fatigue and app overload. It’s a bet that people are ready for technology that feels less like something they have to manage and more like something that simply helps. Whether it becomes a whole new category or remains one of CES’s most intriguing experiments, MÖFO is making a clear statement: the future of computing may not be about better apps at all, but about better agents — and perhaps a friendlier face to talk to.
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