Apps & Consumer
Friend, the AI wearable, adds a voice — and a higher price
Friend, the AI companion necklace that debuted two years ago, has relaunched with a built-in voice and a new $249 price, up from $99 at launch.
Two years ago, founder Avi Schiffmann launched Friend, an AI wearable meant to combat loneliness — a device you could talk to that would send you text messages about your day. This week, the company announced an overhaul of the product, unveiling a notable upgrade: a voice. Schiffmann announced the relaunch, which he’s calling “Friend 2.0,” in a post on X on Thursday. The device now comes with a built-in speaker that can project a consistent personality back at its wearer.
A new commercial for the wearable shows a woman talking to her Friend about, presumably, her ex-girlfriend, and the necklace responds by telling her that being gay isn’t a bad thing. In another scene, a man discusses his filmmaking ambitions with his Friend, which responds with an enthusiastic compliment about his latest work.
The new retail price is $249 — substantially higher than the $99 the device cost when it first launched two years ago.
The company has leaned into unconventional marketing before. Last year, Friend’s billboard campaign in the New York City subway went viral after the ads were repeatedly defaced, presumably by riders who didn’t want human connection replaced by a wearable device.
What a Friend actually does beyond chitchat about your day remains unclear. In another recent post on X, Schiffmann tried to explain the point of the product: “I am interested in this kind of relationship in attempting to offer, some kind of confidant, friend, God, not really sure what it is,” he said. “But it is not an assistant, and it is not a lover.”
Most AI wearables have failed to catch on with the mainstream, at least so far. The product most similar to Friend was Humane Inc., which tried to replace the iPhone with its AI pin but had to shut down its business in less than a year after poor sales.
Why it matters
Friend’s relaunch — a steep price increase paired with a still-vague pitch for what the product actually does — is a bet that a synthetic voice can succeed where text messages didn’t, in a wearable-AI category where the most direct comparable already failed within a year.