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Text｜Yuan Yingliang

Editor: Deng Yongyi

Avi Schiffmann is a post-00s player working in Silicon Valley. At the age of 21, he has produced two generations of AI wearable devices - Tab and Friend.

Before that, he was a genius boy who tracked COVID-19, an alternative student who went to Harvard with a GPA of 1.7 and dropped out after one semester.

Avi Schiffmann Source: X account @HugoAmsellem

But such a strong-minded and unconventional person was broken down in a skyscraper in Tokyo.

"I've never felt so alone in my life," Schiffmann confessed in an interview with WIRED. At the time, he was traveling in Japan and found himself alone in a skyscraper, feeling very lonely and desperate to find someone to talk to.

He already has his first AI product, the Tab, a device for monitoring work and personal tasks. Unfortunately, it can improve productivity but not listen or accompany him, just watching Schiffmann brood.

At that moment, Schiffmann came up with the idea of ​​developing a new AI digital companion that puts practicality first and emotion second.

It doesn't just listen, but acts like a true travel companion, curious about what's going on around it and sharing opinions via text messages.

Friend Image source: official website

Therefore, his second-generation product, Friend, was launched on July 30, 2024, World Friendship Day.

Promoted by X, the pre-sale price is $99. With the help of an eye-catching short video, Friend quickly became popular on social media.

Some netizens found that the appearance and functions are very similar to the electronic pet machines they played with when they were children.

Image source: X account @vocalcry

In the short film, Friend can provide appropriate companionship when traveling, playing games, watching TV series and socializing.

Image source: X

The domain name of the official website, Friend.com, is also very interesting. Schiffmann admitted that he spent $1.8 million on it. This operation is really unusual, considering that the financing amount is only about $2.5 million.

Image source: X

However, this seems to have become a marketing and public relations strategy. When many netizens discussed whether this was appropriate, the product became popular.

Image source: X

Being good at social media promotion strategies is indeed an advantage that is engraved in the DNA of Internet natives, Generation Z.

I have productivity, but I lack a true friend who will always listen

Schiffmann developed Friend with the idea that no matter where you go, someone will listen to you and provide encouragement and support. "Always listening" is the main theme of Friend.

The onboard microphones are Friend's ears, and the large language model is its speech area. You can tap and hold Friend to ask it questions, and sometimes it will get excited and share its "insights" with you without prompting.

When you are bad at playing games and are beaten up by your teammates, your friend might suddenly tease you:

You are being scolded, how shameful!

Image source: Friend official website

When a person is watching a drama, it may also give a review next to it:

This show is totally underrated.

Image source: Friend official website

Schiffmann seems to love art. His X account has many beautiful photos and claims that if you look at the product as a work of art, no one will be a competitor. Therefore, Friend's appearance design took a lot of thought.

Created in collaboration with Bould, the company that designed the Nest thermostat, Friend has sleek lines, a pearlescent finish, and is available in a variety of colors.

Image source: Schiffmann's X account @AviSchiffmann

As an AI wearable device, Friend is inevitably compared with its predecessors. Schiffmann believes that Humane Ai pin and Rabbit R1 are both aimed at improving productivity, while Friend is purely for companionship.

Schiffmann did not pursue emotional value from the beginning. His first-generation product Tab was born for work and tasks. However, he found that people are becoming more and more lonely, and the most important thing in life is people.

Moreover, devices that try to do everything at once will always disappoint people. It is better to reduce the number of products first and improve them gradually with an iterative approach.

Netizens’ feedback can add camera functions. Image source: Schiffmann’s X account @AviSchiffmann

This seems to coincide with the thinking of Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg.

In a recent conversation between Zuckerberg and Huang Renxun, Zuckerberg talked about how although current AI smart glasses cannot fully integrate holographic AR technology, he believes that it will get closer and closer in the next few years and will still be launched as a product.

That is to say,Technology can be iterated, but the important thing is to make a feasible product first. Zuckerberg took a different approach with AI + trendy glasses, while Schiffmann chose to focus on emotional companionship.

X netizens are discussing it hotly, black and red are also red!

But not all netizens buy into this true friend.

First, there is a question of whether the product is necessary. The function of Friend is very simple, and the path is roughly: hardware listening to sound - Bluetooth connection to mobile phone - using a large model to process voice text - pop-up AI reply to the mobile phone.

It seems that these functions can be achieved by mobile phones in the near future. Does language listening and replying require hardware other than mobile phones to achieve it? When Apple and Android systems launch their AI companions, will Friend still be competitive?

Image source: X account @RightWingCope

Moreover, Friend needs to connect to the phone via Bluetooth and the Internet, and the hardware part cannot be restored if it is lost or damaged. It seems to be more troublesome to use than using the phone directly.

Image source: X account @AliensExist0

There is an episode in "Black Mirror" that tells the story of a girl who was too sad because her real boyfriend died, so she replaced him with an AI virtual boyfriend, but finally found that AI cannot replace humans.

Many netizens are worried that the story of Black Mirror will be reflected in reality. Is AI virtual companionship to people's emotional needs like junk food to appetite, you will be addicted to it, but addiction is not a good thing?

Image source: @Vox_Oculi

Although the product promises that data is end-to-end encrypted, some netizens are still worried about privacy protection. Always listening is like carrying a voice recorder with you. Once extremely private information is recorded, it is difficult to ensure that it will not flow into the hands of others, thus causing personal privacy to be stolen.

Image source: X account @naomibrockwell

Regarding this bloody red-on-black storm, Schiffmann quietly posted his friend Emily's consolation:

You've done a lot of preparation for this, just be yourself and talk about Friend like you normally would.

Image source: Schiffmann's X account @AviSchiffmann

18-year-old tracks COVID-19, drops out of Harvard after attending with a GPA of 1.7

A search of Avi Schiffmann’s experience shows that this is not the first time he has been at the center of public opinion storms. It is no surprise that he developed products that focus on emotional companionship. He has always been very humane and wants to bring some changes to the world with his own hobbies and methods.

An 18-year-old high school student from Washington State, USA.

This is Schiffmann's introduction to the COVID-19 case tracking website he set up in early 2020.

As a self-taught web designer, he created a website to track COVID-19 cases in early 2020, at the beginning of the epidemic, in order to allow everyone to find information about COVID-19 in a more unbiased, user-friendly and ad-free way.

The tracking website page created by Schiffmann. Image source: https://ncov2019.live/data

At the time, there were not even a dozen cases reported in the U.S. Yet as the outbreak unfolded and the number of infections surged, the site’s popularity grew, at one point boasting tens of millions of daily users.

The narrative buff of high school students playing with code to help circulate COVID-19 information is very fitting and eye-catching.

Schiffmann immediately rose to fame, not only receiving praise from former US President’s Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci, becoming a Youth Ambassador to the United Nations, but also winning the 2020 Webby Person of the Year Award.

Since then, Schiffmann has been on a journey of building websites and pioneering humanitarian causes.

For example, a Ukrainian refugee list website was created to match Ukrainian refugees who need housing in other countries with hosts in neighboring countries, similar to an Airbnb vertical for refugees.

When he was able to build websites with real-world impact, he began to question whether he needed to go to college.One of the benefits of the Internet age is that you can learn anything online.

According to The Harvard Crimson, Schiffmann dropped out of high school in the spring of 2020 to work on his project full-time. His GPA in high school was only 1.7. In his opinion, the lack of traditional education is an advantage.

However, for some reason, he went back to apply to Harvard and was successfully admitted. But after returning to traditional education, Schiffmann still expressed his dissatisfaction with the academic environment - everyone was worried about math exams, and no one worked on projects with him.

So, in a Silicon Valley tradition, Schiffmann dropped out of Harvard after just one semester—three semesters less than Zuckerberg.

He came to San Francisco and started Tab. In 2024, Tab raised $1.9 million in seed funding from investors including Aravind Srinivas, founder and CEO of Perplexity AI.

This time, Friend has raised $2.5 million. Although there are many doubts and controversies, in an era when people are increasingly lonely, an AI wearable device that focuses on emotional companionship is worth looking forward to.

According to the statistics agency Sensor Tower, Talkie, a Chinese AI product that ranked fourth in downloads in the U.S. AI application market in the first half of 2024, focuses on emotional companionship.

In an interview with well-known technology reporter Zhang Xiuchun, Zuckerberg also mentioned plans to build an AI social network. The essence of a social network is to connect with people, and AI can help us socialize better.

Emotional companionship is an eternal need of human beings, and it can also be successfully utilized in the AI ​​field.

Schiffmann's ultimate goal is not to let AI replace real interactions between people, but to let AI promote interactions between people. Just like the scene in the short film, the girl wanted to press Friend, but in the end she chose to stay in the present and communicate with real friends.

Image source: Friend official website

As Schiffmann puts it:“The most important thing in life is really people.”