When you’ve got ever used an AI transcription service for conferences, calls, lectures, or extra, you know the way good the expertise is at capturing each element of a dialog and changing it into textual content. Now, think about a world the place you would entry an AI-generated transcription of each real-world interplay you may have. Enter the Bee AI wearable.
On Wednesday, Bee CEO Maria de Lourdes introduced by way of LinkedIn that Bee is becoming a member of Amazon. The idea behind Bee is easy: a $49 wristband outfitted with mics and AI that’s worn always to eavesdrop on your on a regular basis interactions, transcribe them, and supply extra insights like conversational search, motion suggestions, and extra.
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The main points of the deal weren’t disclosed. Nonetheless, Amazon’s curiosity in making the acquisition, paired with the discharge and recognition of different AI {hardware} merchandise such because the Meta Oakley AI smartglasses, makes one factor clear — AI-first {hardware} is about to have a giant second.
The Bee Wearable
The Bee AI-wearable is supposed to be an AI companion that’s passively with you always in the course of the day. Whereas at first, the product could sound invasive and superfluous, at CES 2025, I wore and demoed the wristband, and the real-world functions of the product turned evident.
Utilizing audio, the wristband captures conversations all day until manually paused with the button on it. It then will get to know you and supplies AI summaries of your conversations, transcripts — which you’ll parse utilizing a chatbot interface — and actionable insights. The battery is meant to final seven days, enabling customers to actually use it as a companion with out having to fret about recharging at totally different occasions in the course of the day.
The use circumstances are infinite. An apparent instance: being in a gathering and eager to reference the notes later. Much less so: belongings you would not usually be capable of refer again to, equivalent to revisiting a earlier dialog you had with a roommate by which they talked about what they needed you to get from the shop, what title the particular person you simply met was, and even when your buddy stated their birthday was. You possibly can even get suggestions on the way you dealt with a scenario, asking one thing like “How may I’ve reacted higher in that scenario?”
Naturally, individuals could have considerations about having a wearable take heed to them at each second in the course of the day. Once I spoke to co-founder Ethan Sutin at CES, he reassured me that no people can see the conversations, and the info won’t be offered or used for coaching.
There are not any particulars on what Amazon plans to do with the band, and it is vitally doable the ultimate product will look lots totally different and extra in keeping with the suite of present Amazon AI merchandise, together with an integration into the Alexa ecosystem. Amazon is deeply concerned within the AI house with its Nova basis fashions, which may very well be built-in into the product to make it higher.
A rising market
As generative AI turns into extra ubiquitous, the expertise has develop into more and more embedded into merchandise. Practically each new cellphone, headphone, smartwatch, and wearable now has a generative AI characteristic or expertise aimed toward optimizing customers’ interactions with their units. Nonetheless, to carry AI help to the following stage, you want a tool that captures as a lot data as doable in actual time, giving option to a brand new form of product.
One of these product has been tried earlier than, such because the Rabbit R1 or the Humane AI pin. Nonetheless, one of many greatest issues with these launches — past efficiency — is that they required individuals to hold an additional system they usually would not wish to. Because of this, we’re seeing firms making an attempt their hand at new type elements that may supply customers straightforward AI entry and experiences with subtly.
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OpenAI has a {hardware} AI product within the works, seen by its acquisition of the Jony Ive startup. At Google I/O 2025, Google gave extra particulars about its Android XR glasses, which pack Gemini’s help, in-lens shows, audio system, cameras, and mics into the type of conventional eyeglasses. Meta simply partnered with luxurious eyewear model Oakley to launch smartglasses embedded with Meta AI with even longer battery life, making it simpler for customers to all the time entry an assistant.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET’s guardian firm, filed an April 2025 lawsuit in opposition to OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in coaching and working its AI techniques.)
As firms compete to launch a wearable that makes AI probably the most accessible and interesting for customers so as to add to their system rotation, this market is sure to develop into extra saturated within the close to future.
You possibly can sustain with my newest tales and tech adventures on social media. Observe me on Twitter/X at @sabrinaa_ortiz and on Instagram at @sabrinaa.ortiz.
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