Amazon is buying an AI wearable that listens to the whole lot you do

Amazon’s newest transfer within the AI house is an acquisition. The corporate is buying a startup referred to as Bee, which makes a wearable and an Apple Watch app that may report the whole lot the wearer says. Amazon stated that the deal has not closed and that the phrases of the acquisition are confidential. Though the corporate didn’t present particular numbers, it added that each one Bee staff obtained affords to hitch Amazon. first reported this information primarily based on a LinkedIn from Bee founder Maria de Lourdes Zollo.

Bee presents its platform as a customized AI assistant that passively learns from its wearer by listening to all of their conversations and actions. Whereas the wearable does have a button to mute recording, it might probably theoretically observe each single factor the proprietor does or says. The app can then summarize every day actions, recommend to-do gadgets or recall beforehand mentioned particulars. Bee’s additionally provides examples of utilizing the assistant for private progress, comparable to monitoring successes or doable enhancements as a guardian.

Amazon has had a combined bag with wearables endeavors. It nonetheless sells sensible glasses, however shuttered its well being tracker in 2023. The AI angle of Bee could also be of explicit curiosity for Amazon, particularly as the corporate pushes its generative AI assistant. The always-listening side of Bee additionally harkens again to Amazon’s privateness debacle of some years again when it needed to issues that staff had been conversations recorded by Alexa, together with some recorded by chance.