AI & Models
Hark, a new AI lab, aims to build personal intelligence hardware
Hark, a well-funded AI lab founded by Brett Adcock, plans to release its first models this summer, though how the company will execute its hardware vision remains unclear.
Hark, an AI lab backed by $100 million in personal seed money from founder Brett Adcock, is developing a personal intelligence product. The company is designing multimodal end-to-end models—which are AI models designed to process multiple types of data in a unified system—alongside hardware and interfaces in tandem. This system is designed to have a persistent memory of the user’s life, with the ability to listen, see, and interact with the world in real time. How this system will be executed remains unclear outside the company. However, Hark’s ambition represents Silicon Valley’s ongoing search for a consumer AI product rather than features added to existing digital platforms. In a January internal memo, Adcock stated that current AI models are not intelligent enough and that the devices used to access them are fundamentally pre-AI.
The company’s design efforts are led by Abidur Chowdhury, Director of Design at Hark and a former Apple industrial designer. Chowdhury stated that the public can anticipate a first release of the company’s AI models this summer. However, wearable AI platforms like glasses seem unlikely to be the chosen format for the product. Chowdhury expressed skepticism about current hardware trends in the sector. “I’m not the biggest believer in a lot of the wearable AI platforms that people are talking about right now,” Chowdhury said. Instead, Chowdhury argues that existing devices limit how humans interact with technology, noting that everything has been designed around existing platforms rather than placing intelligence at the base layer of user experience.
Hark currently employs 45 engineers and designers, including former researchers and designers from Meta, Apple, and Tesla. To power its development, the company expects to begin using a new cluster of thousands of Nvidia GPUs in April. Hark operates on the same campus as Figure, a humanoid robotics company also founded by Adcock. Although the two companies share a campus, they have no current plans to combine operations.
Why it matters
Hark represents a growing trend of well-funded labs attempting to vertically integrate AI models with custom hardware, aiming to bypass the limitations of current app-based digital platforms.