Friend, the Lonely AI Wearable, Returns with a Voice and a Much Bigger Price Tag
Two years after launch, the Friend AI necklace gets a built-in speaker and a personality, but its price jumps to $249. The product's purpose remains vague, and most similar wearables have failed to gain mainstream traction.
Tech founder Avi Schiffmann launched Friend two years ago as an AI wearable designed to combat loneliness by texting users throughout the day. This week, the company unveiled a major overhaul: Friend 2.0 now features a built-in speaker that gives the device a consistent voice and personality. A new commercial shows a woman confiding in her Friend about an ex-girlfriend, with the necklace responding, “It’s not bad to be gay,” and later a man on a hillside discussing his filmmaking ambitions, receiving the compliment, “That last film you made was insane!”
The updated version costs $249, a significant increase from the original $99 price. Despite the upgrade, it remains unclear what else Friend can do beyond casual conversation. In a post on X, Schiffmann described the product's mission: “I am interested in this kind of relationship… offering some kind of confidant, friend, God, not really sure what it is. But it is not an assistant, and it is not a lover.”
Friend’s marketing has been bold before: last year, its billboard campaign in New York City subways was repeatedly defaced, likely by people who objected to replacing human connection with a digital amulet. Most AI wearables have failed to catch on; the most similar product, Humane Inc.’s AI pin, shut down within a year due to poor sales.
