Humane Ai Pin: the brutal end of an overpriced gadget
Ai Pin had to be the future of connected devices. This small gadget, sold $ 700, promised to replace the smartphone thanks to artificial intelligence. But barely a year after its launch, it is the cold shower: Humane, the start-up behind the project, has just been bought by HP for $ 116 million. The product is abandoned and, in a few days, all the copies will cease to operate following the closure of the servers.
HP redeem Humane and condemns Ai Pin to obsolescence
Launched in April 2024, AI Pin wanted to replace the smartphone. A simple gesture, a voice command, and he answered the questions, translated in real time and even played music. A gadget straight out of a science fiction film. Except that in practice, it was a disaster: slow, imprecise, full of errors. Not to mention the fact that everything he was doing, a smartphone was already doing it … better.
Critics were quick to fuse. A few months after its release, mass feedback was raining. Humane tried to limit the breakage by lowering the price to $ 400 in October, but the evil was done. Ai Pin has never found its audience.
AI is not enough: Humane Ai Pin, a lesson for tech industry
On February 18, 2025, Humane announced his acquisition by HP and the immediate stop of sales. But the worst remains to come: from February 28, 2025, all the AI Pin still in circulation will be practically unusable. No more access to online services and AI features. There will only be only one device capable of indicating your own battery level.
For those who have bought it in the past three months, a refund is planned. For others, it's too bad. An announcement that goes wrong and which leaves a bitter taste among the first buyers, especially since only customers who bought Ai Pin after November 15, 2024 will be able to claim a refund, leaving a large part of the first buyers without compensation .
The redemption of Humane per HP for $ 116 million has aroused various reactions among experts in the sector. Patrick Moorhead, CEO of Moor Insights & Strategy, considers this acquisition as a strategic approach focused on technology, HP being mainly interested in the IA Cosmos platform and the portfolio of more than 300 patents developed by Humane
For HP, the integration of the Humane team represents an opportunity to enrich its own products with advanced AI features. Humane engineers will join the new HP AI innovation laboratory, named HP IQ, dedicated to the development of automatic learning technologies.
Despite fundraising exceeding $ 230 million and high expectations, Humane has failed to make its promises achieve.
