It’s the end of the road for Humane. The embattled AI startup has announced it has been acquired by HP. But its notorious AI Pin — which YouTuber Marques Brownlee, formerly known as MKBHD, called “the worst product” he’s ever reviewed — isn’t part of the deal.
Instead, Humane is winding down support for the Pin, pausing orders and encouraging users to download their media, according to a note shared by the company.
The Pin will function as normal until February 28, at which point it’ll lose most of its features, including calling, messaging, connecting to the cloud and its AI-powered shenanigans.
Some Pin users will be eligible for refunds, but anybody who copped the wearable device prior to November 15, 2024 is out in the cold. Refund requests must be submitted by February 27.
So while Humane’s AI division, including its founders and employees, will get rolled into HP as part of the $116 million acquisition deal, a chunk of consumers will be pretty much left with the husk of a device once touted as the next big thing in tech.
Founders Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno are expected to form a new division at HP, where they’ll oversee the integration of AI within the company’s computers, printers and conferencing tools, Bloomberg reports.
Humane, which received $230 million in funding from big shots like OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, SoftBank, Qualcomm, Microsoft, LG and Volvo, has reportedly been seeking a buyer since May 2024, initially hoping to offload its business for a sum in the range between $750 million to $1 billion.
Well, the final number is $116 million — the price of disappointed early adopters not included.
Death By YouTube?
Humane’s flagship AI Pin, which began shipping less than a year ago in April, received unfavorable reviews across the board.
Brownlee’s reflections on the wearable, summarized in a now-infamous video titled “The Worst Product I’ve Ever Reviewed… For Now” published in April 2024, drew significant controversy at the time.
Although the YouTuber was praised for sharing his unfettered thoughts on the device, naysayers expressed concern that his negative feedback could hurt a company trying to do something new in an otherwise increasingly stale tech ecosystem.
In hindsight, Brownlee had every right to be skeptical — especially now that we know the ones most affected will be the people that believed in Humane’s vision the most and backed it with their hard-earned cash.
Humane’s AI Pin was always a long shot. The proliferation of AI and the acceleration of its adoption into phones and other consumer devices made an already cramped space even smaller for the startup. Who could’ve seen this coming? Brownlee did.
