Humane seeks buyer after AI Pin’s disappointing debut

Humane, the startup behind the poorly reviewed AI Pin laptop, is already looking for a potential buyer for its company. This is what a report reveals Bloombergwhich says the company – led by former longtime Apple employees Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno – is “seeking a price between $750 million and $1 billion.”

That might be a tough sell after the AI ​​Pin’s $699 debut: the device was widely criticized for slow responses and a user experience that fell far short of the wearable, always-on AI assistant concept its founders had promised advance. at the outlet of the device. The product was pitched at least in part as a way for people to be more present and reduce their ever-increasing reliance on smartphones.

Humane has developed its own operating system called CosmOS which runs on AI Pin. It connects to a network of AI models to retrieve responses to voice queries and analyze where the built-in camera is pointed. For certain interactions, the device emits a laser “screen” projected onto the user’s inner palm. A monthly subscription is required to keep the device active.

Humane was valued at $850 million by investors in 2023, but that was before its very first product was universally panned by critics. It has some new and clever ideas, but the AI ​​Pin’s software is undercooked and too inconsistent, and the hardware has poor battery life and overheating issues. Humane has committed to fixing some of these bugs with firmware updates. Last week, it rolled out OpenAI’s GPT-4o model to further improve the device’s intelligence.

The list of potential buyers for Humane seems quite small given the price the startup hopes to fetch. Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft are all making significant progress in the field of AI – with large language models and generative AI becoming more prevalent by the day – but it’s unclear what value Humane’s intellectual property would really contribute to any of their ongoing efforts.