Ghost opens preorders for $3,499 Core AI box

What did Ghost announce on October 5?

Ghost opened preorders for Core on October 5, making the screenless local-AI computer available for $3,499 in the U.S. The company said the first batch was scheduled to ship in the last week of October, and buyers would get a 30-day return window.

Ghost describes Core as a personal computer built specifically for AI agents rather than general consumer computing. The device has no built-in screen and is meant to be controlled through smartphone and web apps, with users able to message or speak to their agents through the app interface.

What does Core do on-device?

Core is positioned as a machine that keeps AI agents running continuously on the user’s own hardware instead of on a third-party cloud service. Ghost says the system can work across email, calendar, files and smart-home devices, and that it can continue operating even if Ghost itself shuts down.

According to TechCrunch's report, Ghost emerged from stealth after about a year of development and framed Core as a dedicated computer for "personal AI" that should not run on someone else’s infrastructure. SiliconANGLE reported that Ghost’s pitch is that agents can learn, reason and perform tasks without sending information to the cloud.

Ghost says Core stores source code, logic, model weights and learned memory on-device. The company also says the user holds the encryption keys, and that neither Ghost nor other third parties can access what is stored on the machine. Those are company claims about the product’s design.

What hardware and software does Ghost say Core includes?

Ghost says Core uses an Nvidia RTX Pro 4000 Blackwell GPU, a six-core AMD Ryzen 5 7600 processor, 64GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. Martin Cid reported the GPU has 24GB of memory, and said the hardware is enough to run a model of around 30 billion parameters locally without a data center.

SiliconANGLE also reported that Core has its own software layer, file system and web browser, and is controlled through dedicated smartphone and web apps rather than a normal desktop operating system. The company says it can push over-the-air updates when Core is connected to the web.

Secondary coverage differed on the preloaded models. SiliconANGLE reported launch models including Qwen-3.8, Qwen-3.8-2.7B and Gemma-4-31B, while Telset said the preloaded models were Qwen-3.8-Next, Qwen-3.8-27B and Gemma-4-31B. IBTimes also reported Muse-Glimmer-30B on the product page.

Ghost says owners can add models from Hugging Face or load models they trained themselves. IBTimes reported that users can also choose whether to adopt new model generations or enable automatic updates.

Who backed Ghost and what comes next?

Multiple reports said Ghost raised $11 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Abstract, Audacious, Nova and SV Angel participating. TechCrunch, SiliconANGLE and IBTimes all reported the financing alongside Ghost’s out-of-stealth launch around Core.

The company is led by founder and CEO Zain Javaid, whom coverage identifies as 19 years old and based in San Francisco. Martin Cid reported Ghost also counts Nicholas Chua, Yifei Chen and Gautam Sharda as co-founders, and said the company assembles each Core unit in-house in San Francisco.

SiliconANGLE reported the first batch had already sold out and that Ghost was collecting interest for a second batch. Telset likewise reported that the first preorder batch sold out on its first day. Ghost has not disclosed shipment countries outside the U.S. or local pricing for Europe, Asia or Latin America, and IBTimes said no UK price had been announced.

For founders and AI builders, Ghost’s bet is straightforward: if agents are going to hold credentials, watch calendars and act continuously, the company wants that workload on hardware the user owns. The company said preorders opened October 5, the first batch was set to ship in the last week of October, and secondary reports said the initial run sold out quickly.