Company reveals wearable AI “Friend” & we spoke to its founder
Friend/Avi SchiffmannFriend, a new AI wearable device was launched on July 30. The gadget, a round lanyard-equipped button, is designed to keep users from feeling lonely.
At just $99, you can press the button to talk to your ‘friend’. It’ll then respond through the app on your phone, like a text message. It requires a constant internet connection, which means always having your phone nearby.
Information about the device is a little thin. The website has a product page and a single blog post by its creator, Avi Schiffmann. Dexerto reached out to Schiffmann over email.
Schiffmann, 21, got his start by creating a live tracker during 2020. His next online project was Ukraine Take Shelter. He claims it helped 100,000 refugees find places to live. He has since dropped out of college and is currently working to release Friend.
Unlike other AI wearables, Avi isn’t aiming at productivity, however.
“Friend is not built to make you more productive or help you remember things. It is solely a conversational friend that you share experiences with.”
An example of this is that after The Verge’s interview, Schiffmann shared screenshots of Friend responding to his performance.
The original Friend
Avi Schiffmann originally introduced Friend as “Tab” in October 2023.
The Harvard Crimson did a profile on Schiffmann, where they noted that it had surpassed $100,000 in sales. Tab had an original run of 100 units, and a second batch was made available.
During the interview, Schiffmann is wearing what he then called “Tab”. It was a black disc with a button. Schiffmann pitches it as an AI “life coach”.
Building an AI Friend
Most companies bringing AI products out will use one of the established language models. Rather than building it from scratch on their own, these “wrapper” startups will build on top of things like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Meta’s Llama frameworks.
In this case, Friend is driven by Anthropic’s Claude 3.5, as well as Llama 3. Schiffmann explains to Dexerto: “We’ll always use whatever the best models are, or train our own. For now, it’s a mix of Anthropic[ Claude 3.5] & Meta Llama 3.”
Claude 3.5 has been hailed as one of the best language models around. It has routinely beaten OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4-o, and Meta’s Llama 3 has also been praised for its high quality.
While competitors chase after voice assistants, Friend will communicate with you via text only.
It’s “always listening”, and when you activate it, it’ll generate a response based on the information it’s gathered.
This is then presented by a notification or in the chat window of the app. In the video, it appeared to be constantly active in the background, using push notifications to continue the story.
We asked about the lack of voice output, which was quickly shut down by Schiffmann.
“Voice [output] is stupid. Reading a text is much faster and more private. [It’s] more immersive because it will always work, unlike glitchy voices,” he says.
Humane’s AI Pin famously got stuck trying to read back “Beyoncé” due to the accent.
However, Schiffmann insists the Friend pendant isn’t aimed at productivity: “The point of the pendant is to make the initial interaction of talking to your friend much easier/lower friction.”
AI skepticism takes over Friend’s debut
Reactions to Friend have been skeptical, as this year has seen two major flops in the AI wearable arena. Rabbit’s R1 and Humane’s AI Pin were both unable to meet their lofty pitches.
An ongoing investigation into the Rabbit R1 also revealed a major security flaw on the backend servers. It also was logging users’ chats without a way to delete them. YouTube investigator CoffeeZilla also called into question some of Rabbit’s practices.
When we questioned the security issue, we were reassured by Schiffmann that “everything is encrypted”. We also wondered if they’d accounted for ever-tightening privacy laws in the EU.
“We do not store audio or transcripts, everything is encrypted [end-to-end], and you can view all the memories your friend has of you in the app and delete them all in one click,” he added.
Apple and Meta recently dropped all AI plans in the EU, as the Union’s scrutinizing of tech deepens.
How secure will Friend be? We’re still finding out
Friend will only be released on iOS devices, which has been fraught with security issues. As one of the most used devices in the world, the iPhone is a consistent target for attackers.
One new feature could potentially circumvent onboard security like FaceID. In June, Apple announced that macOS would be able to mirror iPhones. Users would then be able to use their iPhone on their Mac.
It replaced on-board security options with passwords and TouchID, which could get bypassed. As Friend is storing everything in the app, it potentially leaves users open to vulnerability.
In a June 12 podcast, Risky Business, hosted by cybersecurity journalist Patrick Gray, he called it “horrifying”. In a discussion about how it would potentially circumvent onboard security in privacy-driven apps, co-host Adam Boileau said: “For a few of us that rely on say, Signal on iPhone, because of the very strong hardware security guarantees…”
“The idea that your desktop running, you know, electron apps can just reach into your phone and use your Signal is a little…”
Gray responded: “No I mean, it’s horrifying, right? Like I think I said to you, this is the most awesome feature that I want nowhere near me.”
We asked Friend for further comment on exactly how it plans to protect users aside from offering end-to-end encryption.
Why isn’t Friend just an app?
Schiffmann believes in the power of conversation. Despite the Rabbit R1 just being an Android device with an app, and that you have to look at the app on your phone to interact with it, he doesn’t want you focused on it.
“Because then you could only talk to your friend in an app. It turns the activity into solely just chatting. With Friend, it’s always listening. You can talk to it whenever, you don’t have to be focused on an app.”
Friend currently has no release date, and is available for pre-order for $99.