Humane’s aspiring smartphone-killer ‘Ai Pin’ may be the most 2023 product yet

A few years ago, when Humane first teased its mission statement and goal of reshaping the role of technology in our lives, there was every reason to be skeptical about the company. The idea of replacing the smartphone and the many other screens that we interact with every day is a big task — and one that the majority may even be against. 

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But a quick glance at Humane’s roster list, which now includes an ensemble of ex-Apple employees from recruiting to software services, makes it clear that this is no ordinary startup.

Now, the company has announced the name of its first device, Ai Pin, along with a partnership with Qualcomm Technologies to use its chipsets tailored toward AI applications. Generative AI capabilities built locally into devices — and, therefore, don’t require a connection to the cloud — is something Qualcomm’s been investing heavily in, and may go hand-in-hand with Humane’s newest product.

“Humane’s Ai Pin will deliver a superior AI experience and feature an assortment of on-device AI capabilities. Its revolutionary and sleek form factor is packed with powerful performance so that it can make sense of real-time contextual information and provide the wearer with a new and exciting experience,” says Dev Singh, VP of Business Development at Qualcomm Technologies in a press release.

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I covered Humane’s Ai-powered wearable back in April when founder Imran Chaudhri demoed its assistant-like features at TED 2023. The wearable, which fit snuggly in Chaudhri’s chest pocket, projected interactive user interfaces onto the palm of his hand, from caller IDs to incoming messages. It could also translate your voice in near real-time, applying an AI filter to replicate your tone and timbre in another language.

That was, of course, just a demo. And how the wearable behaves in real-world scenarios like in between subway stations and areas with little to no cellular service remains untested. The full-length demo of Humane’s AI Pin is now available to watch, and we’ll be keeping an eye out for when it launches later this year.