AI startup Limitless, formerly known as Rewind, has been acquired by Meta, the company announced on its website Friday. The company, which developed an AI-powered pendant that records conversations, has announced that it will no longer sell the hardware device and will maintain support for existing customers for one year.
Customers will no longer have to pay a subscription fee and will be moved to an unlimited plan for the time being. Other features will also be phased out, including Rewind, non-pendant software that records users’ desktop activity and turns it into a searchable record.
The startup, founded by Brett Bejcek and Optimizely co-founder and former CEO Dan Siroker, pivoted last year to become an AI device maker, offering its Limitless pendant for $99. Wearables can be attached to your shirt like a wireless microphone or worn like a necklace. This device is one of several AI hardware devices on the market, including another (less popular) AI pendant known as Friend.
According to Limitless’ announcement, the company shares Meta’s vision of “bringing personal superintelligence to everyone,” which includes building AI-enabled wearables. (For now, Meta is focusing on AR/AI glasses like the Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta, as well as the Meta Ray-Ban Display, an AI-in-the-lens glasses.) Limitless said it will help realize that vision. This likely means supporting Meta’s existing products, and does not mean helping Meta add AI pendants to its lineup.
The company hinted that competition in the market has increased, making it difficult to compete, especially as major companies such as OpenAI and Meta are also developing their own hardware devices.
“When I started Limitless five years ago, the world had changed a lot,” Shirokar wrote in the announcement. “AI was a pipe dream for many. Hardware startups would have been considered unfunded, and businesses that did both AI and hardware would have been considered ridiculous. But today is different. The world has changed. We are no longer working on strange fringe ideas. We are now building a future that seems inevitable. We are not alone.”
Meta shared the following statement with TechCrunch via email: “We are thrilled that Limitless is joining Meta to accelerate the development of AI-enabled wearables.” The tech giant did not share further information about its plans, other than to say that the team will work within the Reality Labs wearables organization.
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Limitless will offer customers a way to export their data, or users can choose to delete their data from within the app, the company said.
The startup has raised over $33 million in funding from investors including a16z, First Round Capital, and NEA.
Updated with meta comments after publication.
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