Humane AI founders are reportedly selling the company

The AI startup Humane, which created the wearable personal assistant AI Pin, is planning to sell the company after its unsuccessful debut last month.

Humane is working with a financial adviser to assist in the selling process, Bloomberg reports, quoting two unnamed sources.

According to one person, the startup is seeking between $750 million and $1 billion, though it is still in the early stages and unclear if there will be a buyer at this price.

Humane was founded in 2018 by Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, ex-Apple designers who raised $230 million from Open AI’s CEO, Sam Altman, Microsoft, Qualcomm Ventures, and other notable investors.

At first, the device generated a lot of hype and was described as an AI assistant that could replace a smartphone.

However, the launch was followed by many negative reviews. People found that AI Pin responded to voice queries with latency, had bugs, the battery drained quickly, and it also overheated, showing that it was not ready for the market.

Despite these issues, the Humane sold the device for $700, and it came with a $24 monthly subscription fee.

After the launch, Humane said in a blog post that it is working on improving the device’s battery, latency, overheating, and other issues.

Shortly after Humane’s launch, another personal assistant, Rabbit R1, debuted and met a similar fate.

The company didn’t live up to promises made when the device was introduced at this year’s CES. Besides, it turned out that the interface is powered by a single Android app, posing the question of why Rabbit R1 needs hardware at all.

The underwhelming launches of both devices signaled that personal assistants are not yet ready for the market and cannot replace smartphones.