© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Humane, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) startup is reportedly looking for a buyer, just months after launching its first product, the Humane AI Pin. It is a wearable device, dubbed as a smartphone alternative. The product got negative reviews owing to lack of features and finesse, and this is said to have hurt the sales.
According to a report by Bloomberg, Humane is currently looking to sell for anywhere between $750 million to $1 billion. The company has not responded to Bloomberg’s questions on this.
Humane Inc. was founded by two Apple veterans Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno in 2018. They raised a total investment of $230 million. Last year, the company was valued at $850 million.
Humane’s first product was the AI Pin, a futuristic-looking wearable with an integrated laser projector with generative AI capabilities powered by OpenAI. Priced at $699, the device was marketed as a smart device, an alternative to a smartphone. The users were to pay a monthly subscription of $24 to access data on the device.
The higher retail price and the requirement of a monthly subscription with half-baked features led to negative reviews. Some even called it the worst product they ever reviewed. Since then, the company is said to be working on fixing some of the issues with a software update.
Similar to Humane, another AI hardware company Rabbit also launched its first smartphone alternative product, R1, which received negative reviews too. It was later found that R1 runs on Android, and the service is built like an app.
