Friend relaunches its AI pendant with a speaker, now twice the price
Friend has relaunched its AI pendant, now featuring a built-in speaker that can talk back to users, at double the original price of $249.
Do you remember Friend? The company that launched an AI pendant, spent $1.8 million of its $2.5 million budget to acquire friend.com, and plastered the New York City subway with ads promoting artificial companionship? Well, Friend is back – and this time, it costs twice as much.
This morning, Friend released a new ad showing two people talking to their Friend pendants about very personal life problems. While the ad didn't say it explicitly, it showcased a new feature: a speaker. Previously, Friend would only message back to you; now it can also talk to you. For some reason, adding that feature apparently justifies a $120 price increase, from the original $129 to $249.
The relaunch comes about nine months after a large protest in New York City, where demonstrators tried to draw attention to society's growing dependence on technology. Friend was an obvious target given its massive advertising spending across the city. Founder Avi Schiffmann even posted an image promoting the protest and attended it himself.
Schiffmann tweeted the new ad, calling it "Friend 2.0," even though the product on the company's website is still simply called "Friend." Whether the relaunch will succeed remains to be seen, but the company is clearly betting on the new voice feature to attract users.
