Humane Shuts Shop, HP Snaps Up Assets for $116 Mn

HP announced an agreement on Tuesday to acquire key AI capabilities from Humane, the maker of the wearable Ai Pin introduced, for $116 million. This comes in the backdrop of Humane announcing the discontinuation of its AI Pin by February 28.

The acquisition includes Humane’s AI-powered platform Cosmos, technical talent, intellectual property, and over 300 patents and patent applications. This move aims to accelerate HP’s transformation into an experience-led company.

Tuan Tran, president of technology and innovation at HP, said in his LinkedIn post, “This investment will rapidly accelerate our ability to develop a new generation of devices that seamlessly orchestrate AI requests both locally and in the cloud.” 

He added that Humane’s AI platform, Cosmos, will help HP create an intelligent ecosystem across all HP devices, from AI PCs to smart printers and connected conference rooms, unlocking new functionality for customers.

Humane also informed its customers that AI Pin features will no longer include calling, messaging, AI queries/responses, or cloud access. It encouraged its users to access all data before February 28, 2025, at 12 pm PST, post which it said consumer data will be permanently deleted.

As part of the acquisition, a group of Humane engineers, architects, and product innovators will join HP’s Technology and Innovation Organisation, forming HP IQ, a new AI innovation lab focused on building an intelligent ecosystem across HP’s products and services.

Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri, co-founders of Humane, stated, “We’re excited to join HP at such a pivotal moment in the industry and help shape the future of intelligent experiences.” 

They believe that HP’s scale, global reach, and operational excellence, combined with their design-led approach, integration technology, and engineering expertise, will redefine workforce productivity.

Humane’s AI Pin was released in a demo video without a screen. Users could interact with it using voice, touchpad, gestures, or by holding up objects in front of it to capture. The video also featured a laser projector that displayed text on the user’s hand.

The $24 per month subscription plan included a dedicated phone number, but it worked independently without a phone, paving the way for ambient computing.

However, several users criticised the product and even resorted to breaking the devices. 

Besides, gadget reviewers called it “not good” and termed it the ‘worst product ever reviewed’. 

Some of the key problems highlighted were the long latency, imperfect speech intonations, and even hallucinations. However, the biggest was the price point.