Amazon has acquired the AI wearables startup Bee, in keeping with a LinkedIn post by Bee co-founder Maria de Lourdes Zollo. Amazon confirmed the acquisition to TechCrunch however famous that the deal has not but closed.
Bee, which raised $7 million last year, makes each a stand-alone Fitbit-like bracelet (which retails for $49.99, plus a $19-per-month subscription) and an Apple Watch app. The product data every little thing it hears — until the consumer manually mutes it — with the objective of listening to conversations to create reminders and to-do lists for the consumer.
Zollo told TechCrunch final yr that the corporate hopes to create a “cloud telephone,” or a mirror of your telephone that provides the non-public Bee gadget entry to the consumer’s accounts and notifications, making it doable to get reminders about occasions or ship messages.
“We consider everybody ought to have entry to a private, ambient intelligence that feels much less like a software and extra like a trusted companion. One which helps you mirror, keep in mind, and transfer by means of the world extra freely,” Bee claims on its web site.
Different corporations like Rabbit and Humane AI have tried to make AI-enabled wearables like this however haven’t discovered a lot success up to now. However at a $50 worth level, Bee’s units are extra cost-accessible to a curious client who doesn’t need to make an enormous monetary dedication. (The ill-fated Humane AI Pin was $499.)
An Amazon spokesperson advised TechCrunch that Bee workers acquired presents to hitch Amazon.
This acquisition indicators Amazon’s curiosity in creating wearable AI units, a special avenue from its voice-controlled house assistant merchandise like its line of Echo audio system. ChatGPT maker OpenAI is working by itself AI hardware, whereas Meta is integrating its AI into its smart glasses. Apple is rumored to be engaged on AI-powered sensible glasses as properly.
These merchandise include plenty of safety and privateness dangers, on condition that they report every little thing round them; totally different corporations’ insurance policies will range by way of how voice recordings are processed, saved, and used for AI coaching.
In its current privacy policies, Bee says that customers can delete their information at any time and that audio recordings aren’t saved, saved, or used for AI coaching. The app does retailer information that the AI learns concerning the consumer, nonetheless, which is the way it can operate as an assistant.
Bee beforehand indicated that it deliberate to solely report the voices of people that have verbally consented. Bee additionally says it’s engaged on a function to permit customers to outline boundaries — each primarily based on matter and site — that may robotically pause the gadget’s studying. The corporate famous that it plans to construct on-device AI processing, which typically poses much less of a privateness threat than processing information within the cloud.
It’s not clear if these insurance policies will change as Bee is built-in into Amazon, nonetheless — and Amazon has a combined report on the dealing with of consumer information from its clients’ units.
Prior to now, Amazon shared footage with regulation enforcement from folks’s private Ring safety cameras, with neither the proprietor’s consent, nor a warrant. Ring additionally settled claims in 2023 introduced by the Federal Commerce Fee that workers and contractors had broad and unrestricted access to customers’ videos.
