Amazon's newest transfer within the AI area is an acquisition. The corporate is buying a startup known as Bee, which makes a wearable and an Apple Watch app that may file every thing the wearer says. Amazon mentioned that the deal has not closed and that the phrases of the acquisition are confidential. Though the corporate didn’t present particular numbers, it added that each one Bee staff obtained affords to hitch Amazon. TechCrunch first reported this information primarily based on a LinkedIn submit from Bee founder Maria de Lourdes Zollo.
Bee presents its platform as a personalised AI assistant that passively learns from its wearer by listening to all of their conversations and actions. Whereas the wearable does have a button to mute recording, it could actually theoretically observe each single factor the proprietor does or says. The app can then summarize every day actions, recommend to-do objects or recall beforehand mentioned particulars. Bee's web site additionally provides examples of utilizing the assistant for private progress, akin to monitoring successes or doable enhancements as a dad or mum.
Amazon has had a blended bag with wearables endeavors. It nonetheless sells Echo Frames sensible glasses, however shuttered its Halo well being tracker in 2023. The AI angle of Bee could also be of specific curiosity for Amazon, particularly as the corporate pushes its Alexa+ generative AI assistant. The always-listening side of Bee additionally harkens again to Amazon's privateness debacle of some years again when it needed to deal with considerations that staff had been reviewing conversations recorded by Alexa, together with some recorded accidentally.
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