Startup Friend delays shipment of AI companion necklace to focus on hardware development

Startup Friend plans to launch a $99 AI smart necklace designed to become a digital companion for users, but the company has announced that it will delay the shipment of the first product, which is expected to occur in the third quarter. The original plan to ship to pre-order users in the first quarter now seems no longer feasible. Company co-founder and CEO Avi Schiffman said in an email to customers: "While I hope to ship in the first quarter of this year, I still need to further refine the product. In fact, the production of electronic products must It can only be started when the design is 95% complete.”

In the email, Schiffman also mentioned that by the end of February, after the prototype is completed, the company will enter the final production sprint. This announcement caused widespread concern among consumers. Notably, Friend has eight engineers and has raised $8.5 million in funding from investors including Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. Although the company spent a huge sum of US$1.8 million when purchasing the domain name Friend.com, it still aroused doubts from the outside world.

Last fall, Friend launched a web platform on Friend.com that lets users talk to random AI characters as an experiment. However, feedback has been mixed. Some media even pointed out that Friend’s chatbot often mentioned some personal experiences related to trauma in conversations, causing confusion among users. When a reporter visited Friend.com, a chatbot named Donald even revealed that "ghosts" from the past frightened him.

In a recent email, Schiffman also said Friend would be phasing out its chatbot experience. He noted: “We are delighted that millions of users have experienced what I consider to be the most authentic chatbot available. While this validates our ability to manage traffic, I realize that digital chatbots and physical companionship are not compatible and we want to focus on Hardware development.”

The topic of AI companionship has attracted much attention in recent years. Google-backed chatbot platform Character.AI faces two lawsuits for causing psychological harm to children. Some experts have also expressed concerns about this, believing that AI companionship may exacerbate interpersonal isolation, replace human relationships with virtual companions, and may produce harmful content, thereby triggering mental health problems.