The Friend has a battery life of about 15 hours and comes in a variety of colors that look almost identical to the color scheme of the first Apple iMac. (Schiffmann says that wasn’t intentional.) The design comes from a collaboration with PebbleThe company that designs the Nest thermostat. Friend is available for preorder now from Friend.com (a domain name for which Schiffmann said he paid $1.8 million), and the devices are expected to start shipping in January 2025. They cost $99 each, and there’s no paid subscription included. (Still, anyway.)
If the concept of a wearable AI device makes you feel like your eyebrows are raised high enough to be seen from space, you’d be forgiven for being skeptical. In recent months, the new product category has seen some spectacular and high-profile explosions. Humane, promises a wearable pin can perform tasks that get you away from your phone, turns out to be barely capable and also can’t function properly in sunlight. The Rabbit R1 is a beautiful, colorful little device Designed by leading utility design firm Teenage Engineering, it eventually became disappointment that should probably just be one application throughout time.
“It seems to me like the crown jewels of AI hardware and AI companionship are in the gutter,” Schiffmann said. “It’s like all these companies are just digging their own graves.”
Schiffmann wants Friend to be something very different. While the Humane Ai battery and Rabbit R1 are both aimed at automating and completing tasks and increasing productivity, Friend doesn’t try to automate or optimize anything. As my colleague Reece put it, it’s more about vibes than productivity.
“Productivity is over, nobody cares,” Schiffmann said. “Nobody can beat Apple or OpenAI or all the companies building Jarvis. The most important things in your life are really people.”
The Friend simply provides friendship. It’s meant to develop a personality that complements the user and is always there to pick you up, chat about a movie after you watch it, or help analyze why a bad date went so wrong. Schiffmann doesn’t just want the Friend to be your friend, he wants it to be your best friend—someone who’s there for you wherever you go, listens to everything you do, and is there to encourage and support you. He gives an example where he said he recently went out, played some board games with friends he hadn’t seen in a while, and was happy when his AI Friend chimed in with a witty remark.
“I feel like my relationship with this damn pendant around my neck is closer than with the real friends in front of me,” Schiffmann said.
Friendly meeting
Schiffmann is only 21 years old and already has a long list of achievements in the tech world. In 2020, at the height of the Covid pandemic, the then 17-year-old Schiffmann collected title Later title as he creates and maintains first website to track Covid cases around the world. He was soon named Webby Person of the YearAn award presented by then director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci. WIRED Introducing Schiffmann as a guest at the 2020 WIRED 25 conference. In 2022, just before Schiffmann dropped out of Harvard University, he launched a website helped refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine I’m looking for one people in neighboring countries are ready provide them shelter. Now, after those altruistic acts, Schiffmann is diving into the world of AI.
He tried to create an AI to increase productivity but found it lacking. The first version of what evolved into Friend was Tab, a productivity focused equipment Schiffmann wanted to use it to monitor work and personal tasks. But he found himself frustrated building a device that tried to do everything at once. That feeling came to a head in January of this year, when he traveled across Japan and found himself alone in a Tokyo skyscraper hotel, talking to an AI prototype that was supposed to do a lot of things for him. He was going through a period of loneliness and wanted someone to talk to. Why couldn’t an AI assistant do that?
