Amazon is making a push into AI gadgets with a brand new acquisition.
Amazon confirmed to TechCrunch on Tuesday that it’s planning to amass San Francisco-based Bee, an AI wearable startup, however famous that the deal has not but closed. Bee staff have acquired affords to affix Amazon, an Amazon spokesperson instructed TechCrunch. The startup has between two to 10 staff listed on LinkedIn.
Bee’s core product is an AI bracelet that acts as a second reminiscence, recording all the conversations it hears to create summaries, reminders, and to-do lists for customers. The $50 machine, which resembles a Fitbit smartwatch, requires an extra $19 month-to-month subscription. Bee raised $7 million final yr to develop the gadget, which may perceive 40 languages and has a 7-day battery life. It’s at present backordered as a result of excessive demand.
Associated: Samsung Is Trying into Making AI Necklaces, Earrings, and Different Wearables: ‘All Sorts of Potentialities’
Bee CEO Maria de Lourdes Zollo wrote in a LinkedIn put up on Tuesday that she “could not be extra excited” concerning the acquisition.
“What started as a dream with an unimaginable staff and neighborhood now finds a brand new house at Amazon,” Zollo wrote.
The acquisition is an indication of Amazon’s intent to create AI wearables, a special path from the corporate’s Alexa-enabled Echo audio system and residential assistant merchandise. Amazon has tried to enter the wearable machine market earlier than, with restricted success. In 2020, Amazon started promoting a health-tracking bracelet known as Halo, which tracked exercise, sleep, and physique fats. By 2023, Amazon shut down the Halo machine as a part of a broader cost-cutting measure.
Different corporations are additionally trying into AI wearables, together with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which acquired the startup io for $6.5 billion in Could to additional its work on client gadgets embedded with AI.
Samsung can also be contemplating growing AI gadgets that customers can put on, like AI necklaces and earrings, the corporate indicated earlier this month. In the meantime, Apple and Google are engaged on good glasses to compete with Meta, which launched a brand new model of its bestselling good glasses in collaboration with Oakley final month.
Associated: Amazon Is Ending an Essential Privateness Characteristic for Alexa Echo Units By the Finish of the Month
Bee’s wearable poses safety, privateness, and authorized considerations, provided that it data the whole lot round it. Eleven U.S. states, together with Massachusetts, Florida, and California, require the consent of everybody concerned in a dialog earlier than the interplay could be recorded.
Bee’s present privateness insurance policies state that the corporate doesn’t save, retailer, or use audio recordings for AI coaching, nevertheless it does retailer what the AI learns concerning the person. The startup has said that it solely plans to file the voices of people that have consented verbally to the recording, per TechCrunch. Bee can also be engaged on a function to routinely cease recording audio primarily based on boundaries like subject and site that the person defines, per the outlet.
Amazon has beforehand come beneath scrutiny for the best way it handles person knowledge. In 2022, Amazon supplied movies from Ring private safety cameras to legislation enforcement with no warrant or person consent. In 2023, the Federal Commerce Fee ordered Ring to pay $5.8 million in a settlement over claims that Ring staff might view footage from buyer cameras for years.
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Amazon is making a push into AI gadgets with a brand new acquisition.
Amazon confirmed to TechCrunch on Tuesday that it’s planning to amass San Francisco-based Bee, an AI wearable startup, however famous that the deal has not but closed. Bee staff have acquired affords to affix Amazon, an Amazon spokesperson instructed TechCrunch. The startup has between two to 10 staff listed on LinkedIn.
Bee’s core product is an AI bracelet that acts as a second reminiscence, recording all the conversations it hears to create summaries, reminders, and to-do lists for customers. The $50 machine, which resembles a Fitbit smartwatch, requires an extra $19 month-to-month subscription. Bee raised $7 million final yr to develop the gadget, which may perceive 40 languages and has a 7-day battery life. It’s at present backordered as a result of excessive demand.
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