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The Humane AI Pin debacle is a reminder that AI alone doesn’t make a compelling product

It's no surprise that Humane crashed and burned. It's a cautionary tale for other companies that you need way more than AI to make a good product.

The company tried to build some buzz around its AI Pin in late 2023, marketing the device as a tiny replacement for smartphones and playing up the fact that Humane’s co-founders were former Apple employees. As it turned out, waving your hands and shouting about the promise of AI doesn’t make it any easier to build compelling hardware — we slammed its high price, terrible battery life, slow performance, excessive heat and hard-to-use projected display. And the combo of terrible voice responses and recognition paired with a projector display that was not at all ready for prime time (not to mention the other hardware failings) was far too much to overcome.

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