Wearable AI brand Humane looking to sell, sources say

What you need to know

• Reports suggest that Humane, the AI wearable start-up, is looking for a potential buyer.
• The company's AI pin started shipping to customers only about a month ago for $699 and an additional $24/month subscription + taxes and fees. 
• Sources close to the company said Humane is seeking a price between $750 million and $1 billion in a sale.

Humane, the company that owns the wearable AI pin, is now looking for a potential buyer, according to Bloomberg. "People familiar with the matter" told the publication that Humane is seeking a price between $750 million and $1 billion in a sale. However, the process seems to be in its initial stages and may not result in a deal. 

The same source told Bloomberg that "the company is working with a financial adviser to assist the potential sale." The Information reported that investors valued Humane at $850 million last year. For now, the company has not publicly commented on the matter. 

Humane was founded in 2018 by two ex-Apple designers, Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno. By 2023, they secured a massive $230 million, with some of their investors being OpenAI and Microsoft. Humane announced their AI Pin, a minimalistic magnetic, voice-controlled device with AI assistance that allows users to do everything from making calls to controlling music with vocal commands.

After months of creating a buzz about the laser-projecting wearable pin, Humane started shipping its devices in April this year for $699 and an additional $24/month subscription + taxes and fees. 

Following several complaints about the pin's cost-effectiveness, slow response rate, and accuracy, the company took to X to inform users that they were bringing Ai Mic accuracy improvements across user support, video stabilization, and contacts experience improvements. 

On May 15, following Open AI's multimodal GPT-4o launch, Humane announced that it would integrate GPT-4o into the Ai Bus to help the pin understand and react to voice requests. This means that the AI pin will depend highly on OpenAI's software, leaving it vulnerable to the choice that users would eventually make, i.e., they might choose to get similar features on their phones rather than spending $700 on a dedicated AI pin.