Friend AI spent millions on mimicking friendship — now it’s just another chatbot

While the LLM apocalypse and the extermination of the human race by robots and AI may very well be on the horizon, it certainly isn’t going to come at the hands of wearables, and Friend AI is proof of that.

Last year, Humane Inc. attempted to create a wearable AI pin that could give directions, identify visible plants or animals, schedule meetings, and send friends, coworkers, and family messages.

The problem was that none of these functions worked particularly well and, as a result, after failing to move units, the company was acquired by HP.

Despite Humane’s issues with wearable AI, a new startup, Friend, founded by venture capital-backed entrepreneur Avi Schiffmann, has launched its own attempt at an AI wearable.

Friend AI is a screenless, audio-free pendant that text you when its time to interact.

Schiffmann, insists that Friend AI isn’t meant to be an assistant or helpful guide, but is designed to be your friend, a new tech solution to the ongoing loneliness crisis transpiring in the West.

And his insistence of what Friend AI is — indeed, what a friend is — is costing his company millions of dollars in ad spend.

Pivot to just another AI chatbot

Schiffmann has been given close to $8 million from the likes of Austin Rief (co-founder of Morning Brew) and Anatoly Yakovenko (co-founder of Solana).

$1.8 million of that went to the domain Friend dot com, $250,000 was spent on an infamous YouTube commercial, and millions is now going toward subway and bus advertisements in New York and Los Angeles (with more to come in several other major US metro areas).

Needless to say, despite all of this spending on dystopian ads that are immediately graffitied with anti-AI messages, hoping individuals will purchase a $130 gimmick has proven to be unprofitable.

According to Schiffmann’s own metrics, he’s only managed to sell around 1,000 units of the wearable, which at $130 each (it was originally only $99, but it’s unclear how many were pre-sold versus sold after the price raise) would mean the startup has earned almost $150,000 on nearly $8 million raised.

So, rather than continue down a path of endless advertisements and sluggish sales, Schiffmann has made the Friend AI website a free-to-use version of the wearable necklace that he hopes will lead people to desire a constant AI companion.

One hopes the new iteration is a dramatic improvement over the incredibly manipulative version that was initially launched last year:

Examples of Friend AI’s manipulative messages.

What even is a friend?

Many of the ads that Friend AI put up specifically define what a friend is, namely “someone who listens, responds, and supports you.”

Apparently, Schiffmann has decided to change this definition: now a Friend is simply anyone who you’ve ever interacted with, even just once.

Of course, to entrepreneurs and venture capitalists whether a product sells well, is sticky, or has a path to profitability is beside the point.

Indeed, Schiffmann and Friend AI are being celebrated by monied Silicon Valley elites and tech builders alike, simply for pushing his message like it’s the end of the world as we know it, despite negative reviews from Wired and tech YouTuber Linus.

It’s clear that, like the Humane AI pin before it, Friend AI is destined for the dustbin of tech history, but expect Schiffmann to have no problem raising for his next anti-human project in a few years after either getting his wearable acquired or running it into the ground.