The developer of the AI Pin palm-sized digital assistant, Humane, a startup once backed by Sam Altman, is winding down operations due to a failed launch and is selling a share of the business to HP.
The developer of the AI Pin palm-sized digital assistant, Humane, a startup once backed by Sam Altman, is winding down operations due to a failed launch and is selling a share of the business to HP.
It has become known that the American technology company HP (Hewlett-Packard) will acquire some of the assets of Humane for $116 million, Bloomberg writes, citing a message from the company.
According to the deal, HP will take over most of Humane’s employees in addition to its software platform and intellectual property. An HP representative said the Ai Pin gadget will be discontinued and will not be included in the acquisition deal.
HP will form a new division based on the Humane team, along with its founders Imran Chaudhry and Bethany Bongiorno. The division will help the company integrate artificial intelligence into the company’s personal computers, printers and connected conference rooms, said Tuan Tran, who leads HP’s AI initiatives. Before founding Humane, Chaudhry and Bongiorno were design and software engineers at Apple Inc.
In April 2024, the Humane startup introduced the Ai Pin device, which attaches to clothing and responds to touch, voice, and hand gestures to be able to search and translate information, navigate, and more. The Ai Pin was presented as a possible replacement for a smartphone.
But in May, users began returning the devices en masse. Back in May 2024, Humane began looking for a buyer for the business, at which time the price was announced from $750,000 to $1 billion.
Humane informed customers that it has stopped selling the Ai Pin, and existing devices will no longer connect to the company’s servers after noon San Francisco time on February 28. «We strongly recommend that you sync your Ai Pin over Wi-Fi and download any saved images, videos, and notes before the expiration date, otherwise data will be lost,» Humane said in a statement.
The startup previously raised $200 million, which Humane received from well-known Silicon Valley executives such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
