Although there is nothing official yet, the rumor that is currently circulating has some weight Humane. The company led by Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, two former Apple employees, tried to revolutionize the mobile market by launching AI Pin, a “smart pin” that can answer questions, take photos and more. The device however was panned in virtually all reviews and this would have led to a decision: sell the company.
AI Pin is a flop, Humane is looking for a buyer
The indiscretion comes from Bloomberg, therefore a highly reliable source. Chaudri and Bongiorno would only evaluate proposals ranging between $750 million and $1 billionbut the sale could turn out to be more complex expected. The aforementioned AI Pin did not win over users because it was too expensive (it starts at $699) and too slow in responding (and often also imprecise) and because of an almost nightmarish user experience. In short, something very different from the concept of an always active and wearable AI assistant promised during the pre-launch phase.
Humane has created its own operating system called CosmOS that connects to a network of artificial intelligence models to provide answers to user questions and analyze what is framed by the camera. For some interactions, the device projects a laser display onto the palm of the hand. For the creation of the “hi-tech brooch”, the company obtained 230 million dollars from some investorsincluding Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.
According to what we read in the report Bloomberg, Humane was valued at 850 million dollars in 2023, therefore before the rejection of AI Pin which arrived almost unanimously. Sure, some bugs have been fixed with software updates released post-launch, but the opinion of industry experts and users hasn’t changed.
But how many names does the list of potential buyers consist of? In reality, this is likely to be very short. Giants such as Google, Apple, Meta and Microsoft are already moving into the artificial intelligence market (also with partnerships with the aforementioned OpenAI) and their interest in Humane, right now, it could be at a minimum.