Meta acquires AI device startup Limitless

Meta has acquired Limitless, the AI ​​startup formerly known as Rewind, the company announced Friday on its website. Website. The company, which has created an AI necklace that records your conversations, says it will no longer sell its devices and will maintain support for its existing customers for a year.

Customers will no longer have to pay subscription fees and will be moved to the unlimited plan for the time being. Other functions will be discontinued, including the unsuspended “Rewind” program, which records user recordings. Desktop activity And turn it into a searchable record.

The startup company he founded Brett Bujek and dan siroker, Co-founder and former CEO of Optimallypivoted to become an AI hardware maker last year, offering its Limitless necklace for $99. The wearable device can be attached to your shirt like a wireless microphone or worn like a necklace. The device is one of many AI devices on the market, including another (It was not well received) AI pendant known as friend.

According to Limitless’ announcement, the company shares Meta’s vision of “bringing superpersonal intelligence to everyone,” which includes building AI-enabled wearables. (Meta is currently focused on AR/AI glasses, such as the Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta, AI glasses built into the lenses, and the Meta Ray-Ban Display.) Limitless has said it will help realize that vision — which likely means supporting Meta’s existing products, not helping Meta add an AI necklace to its lineup.

The company indicated that the increasing competition in the market made it difficult for it to compete, especially since… Bigger players like OpenAI And Meta develop their own products Devices Hardware too.

“When we started Limitless five years ago, the world was very different,” Siroker wrote in the announcement. “AI was a pipe dream for many. Hardware startups were considered unbankable, and businesses based on AI and hardware were considered ridiculous. But today is different. The world has changed. We are no longer working on a weird fringe idea. We are building a future that now seems inevitable. We are not alone.”

Meta shared the following statement with TechCrunch via email: “We are excited to have Limitless join Meta to help accelerate our work building AI-enabled wearables.” The tech giant did not share more information about its plans, except to note that the team will work in the Reality Labs wearables organization.

Limitless will offer its customers a way to do this Export Or users can choose to, the company said Wipe Their data from within the application.

He had a startup He grew up Over $33 million in funding from investors, including a16z, First Round Capital, and NEA.

Updated after posting with meta comment.