The company formerly known as hu.ma.ne — now Humane — has begun shipping its flagship project, the Ai Pin.
You can buy the Super Matte Black on Black edition with High Gloss Black Booster for $699 or a Polished Chrome edition for $799. Users also need a “$24 per month plus taxes and fees” subscription to use the Ai Pin. And what is a cool new tech product without some swag? Real Humane-heads can also buy a charging case for $149, a Clip for $49, a Latch for $39, or even a Shield for $29 (that comes in 9 colors!). But what is Humane, Inc.? What is an “Ai Pin”? And should anyone buy this product?
Humane was founded in 2018 by two former Apple executives, in part due to the influence of “a Buddhist monk named Brother Spirit,” the New York Times reported. This is part of the pitch for the company: that two people quit working at Apple to go off into the great unknown and start what must be a super cool company. You know who else quit their job at Apple? Steve Jobs!
The Humane website says that:
“Together, Imran and Bethany [the founders] envision a future that is even more intelligent and even more personal, and have committed Humane to building not for the world as it exists today but as it could be tomorrow.”
After receiving at least $240 million in venture capital funding, Humane announced the details of their revolutionary invention, the “Ai Pin” in 2023. This device began shipping in April 2024, with some early recipients publicly giving their thoughts online.
But what is the “Ai Pin”?
Put simply, it is a little device that can be pinned to your shirt or jacket with a magnet. It can be controlled with a touchpad for doing simple gestures, by voice, or on your hand, as the device projects what would be on your screen for a smartphone onto your hand. The pin is standalone, and cannot be linked to your phone. The flagship feature is the AI model that can be talked to like a personal assistant. Ideally, this could be a Siri for everything.
Should anyone buy this product?
For the moment, most signs point to no. The AI may be powerful, but critics have pointed to long waits between responses as a point against it.
Popular tech reviewer Marques Brownlee describes the Ai Pin as “bad at almost everything that it does,” a less than glowing recommendation for a device that would cost you over $1,000 to own for a year.
In general, the Ai Pin seems pointless to many customers and reviewers. Humane seems to want the Ai Pin to be comparable to the iPod or iPhone in terms of market disruption, scope, and sales. However, these products worked because they were useful, something this pin just isn’t yet. Furthermore, consumers should be wary of buying a product that could get iterated on. Maybe the Ai Pin 3 will completely change our lives, but that doesn’t warrant purchasing a little square that can tell you how tall the Empire State Building is whenever you want.
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