I spent the all day of CES wearing a little yellow bracelet. To unsuspecting bystanders, it probably looked like a fitness tracker. But the whole time, this yellow Pioneer wearable from Bee AI recorded everything around me. It didn’t record audio like a standard recording app, but it processed my conversations, then gave me a to-do list and readable summaries of my manual conversations.
A few days before the trade show, I spoke with the founder of another new company, Omi, which officially launched today. Guess what it does? Record everything around you to create an activity log, then have AI disseminate the information to provide you with tangible insights and your daily activities, almost like a personal assistant. Omi’s wearable can go around your neck, but it’s best worn attached to your forehead near your temple—there’s an electroencephalogram inside, and Omi says that if you think directly about talking to the wearable, the device will understand and be happy to receive it. your request.
This is the new world we’re in, smart wearables that continue to shape the world around us. Voice assistants—which initially resided in our speakers and phones, but quickly moved to our wrists and faces—at least required active interaction such as a tap or voice to activate their listening capabilities. But the next wave of hardware assistants, including the upcoming Companion pendant, can passively absorb information and work in the background. That’s right I always listen.
The wearable hardware that leads this space is often cheap—the Bee AI watch is just $50, and Omi’s sticky bead is $89—but the real magic is in the software, which often requires registration as it enters many major language models for analysis. your conversations.
Bee AI
Bee AI was founded by Maria de Lourdes Zollo and Ethan Sutin. Both had worked at Squad (Sutin was the founder), which enabled media screen sharing in video chats so people could watch the same movie or YouTube video remotely. The company was acquired by X (back when it was called Twitter), and the two briefly joined forces to work on Twitter Spaces. Zollo previously worked at Tencent and Musical.ly, which later became TikTok.
Sutin says he explored the idea of an AI personal assistant back in 2016 when chatbots were all the rage, but the technology wasn’t there. That’s not the case anymore. The company launched its Bee AI platform last February in beta, with an active community providing feedback. It just started selling its Pioneer hardware a little over a week ago. (The word “Bee” goes with the idea of a computer around, as if something is buzzing and bringing in information.) You don’t. the need The company’s hardware is to use Bee AI—you can simply interact with the AI through an iPhone app—but Zollo says the wearable provides richer information since it can record continuously throughout the day. An Android app is on the way by the end of the month.
The wearable is simple. It has two noise-isolating microphones, and Sutin says that if you hear someone talking to you in a busy environment, it’s a wearable. it should being able to hear both sides again. It can be worn as a wrist band or attached to your shirt. There is an “Action” button in the middle; pressing it once mutes the microphone, and pressing it again enables it again. You can press and hold the button, and this action is configurable, to trigger things like processing the current conversation or triggering the AI assistant “Buzz” to ask a question. (There is no speaker on the wearable, so responses will be spoken through your phone.) When the microphone is muted, there is a red LED. When it’s recording, you’d think the green LED would be lit, but there’s nothing to indicate that this wearable is picking up everything around you.
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