Friend 2.0 doubles its price to $249 and asks buyers to treat an AI necklace as 'some kind of confidant, friend, God'

Friend 2.0 now costs $249, and the founder still can't say what it is

An AI necklace that launched at $99 two years ago now costs $249. It gained a built-in speaker and a voice personality. What it does beyond conversation remains unclear, and the person who built it is not pretending otherwise 1.

Avi Schiffmann, a tech founder, launched Friend in 2024 as an AI wearable you could talk to that would send text messages about your day. The stated purpose was to use AI to combat loneliness. This week he announced Friend 2.0, which adds a speaker and what the company describes as a "unique and consistent personality" projected to the wearer 1. The price moved from $99 to $249.

The most revealing moment came when Schiffmann tried to articulate what the product actually is. In a post on X, he wrote that he is interested in offering "some kind of confidant, friend, God, not really sure what it is." He added that it is "not an assistant, and it is not a lover" 1.

When the person selling a device cannot define what it is and then raises the price, the question is not whether $249 is too expensive. The question is whether this category has ever had a reason to exist.

The track record says no. Humane Inc., which sought to replace the iPhone with its AI pin, shut down its business in less than a year after poor sales 1. Rabbit's R1, announced at CES 2024 at $199, earned a 3 out of 10 from WIRED, which called the device "dead weight" and identified the reviewer's central problem as "finding a use for it" 2. TechCrunch notes that most AI wearables have failed to catch on with the mainstream 1.

These failures share a pattern. Each product wraps AI in a physical object: a pin, a handheld gadget, a necklace. In each case, the core function could run as software on the phone already in someone's pocket. Humane wanted to replace the phone but could not explain why you would want to. Rabbit wanted to be an assistant but could not complete tasks your phone handles faster. Friend wants to be your companion, or confidant, or, in its founder's words, possibly your God.

The pattern points to a specific gap. Hardware earns its place on your body when it owns a job no other device can do at that moment, in that location. The Apple Watch put fitness tracking and notifications on your wrist. AirPods freed audio from wires. Each solved a problem the phone handled poorly or not at all in that context.

An AI necklace that chats about your day does not own that kind of job. A speaker and a personality are features, not a purpose. Raising the price from $99 to $249 does not close the distance between an interesting experiment and something people need.

Schiffmann's company has attracted attention before. Friend's subway billboard campaign in New York City went viral last year after the ads were repeatedly defaced, presumably by people who did not want human connection replaced by a device 1. Attention is not the same as demand.

Schiffmann's candor about the product's identity is genuine, and unusual among founders. But honesty about what a product is not does not substitute for an answer to what it is. Friend 2.0 enters this market with a higher price for a device the builder describes in theological terms.

The wearable form factor did not sink Humane or Rabbit. The absence of a reason to exist did. Until someone in this category can name the specific problem their device solves that a phone cannot, $249 for an AI confidant is not a product strategy. It is a bet that loneliness is a large enough market to fund the search for a use case.