The secretive AI lab founded by serial entrepreneur Brett Adcock has shared new details about what it believes is a novel fusion of model building and hardware design that will change the way humans interact with intelligent software.
The company said in a statement that it designs multimodal end-to-end models, hardware and interfaces together to deliver “seamless end-to-end personal intelligence products.” This system permanently remembers your life and allows you to hear, see, and interact with the world in real time.
How that will be accomplished is not yet clear to the outside world, but Haak’s ambitions are emblematic of Silicon Valley’s continuing search for the killer apps that make AI a desirable consumer product, rather than a feature questionably built into existing digital platforms.
“My view is simple: Today’s AI models are not intelligent enough and feel very stupid, and the devices we use to access them are fundamentally pre-AI,” Adcock wrote in a January internal memo shared with TechCrunch. “We are moving toward a world similar to the sci-fi character Jarvis and her, with systems that anticipate, adapt, and genuinely care about the people who use them.”
Details are intentionally kept under wraps, but Haak has named design director Abidur Chaudhry as a key hire. Previously credited as an industrial designer at Apple, where he led the design team for the iPhone Air and other latest models, the London-born Chaudhry left last fall after meeting with Adcock and agreeing with his vision of updating the way we automate our lives.
In an exclusive interview with TechCrunch, Chaudhry declined repeated invitations to reveal Hark’s roadmap, saying only that the public can expect the first release of the company’s AI models this summer. When asked about different approaches to working with and living with AI, the designer offered some tips.
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“What was very clear to me at the time was that even though the world was obviously changing, we were still using the same devices… Everything was designed around these existing platforms,” Chaudhry said. “Very few people are really chasing what the future holds. There’s a lot that can be done if intelligence is at the base layer of everything we touch, rather than at the top of an app or website.”
Chaudhry points to the awkwardness of mundane tasks like filling out forms and sharing information across devices, as well as everyday tasks like booking a trip or planning a home renovation.
“The whole evening is a time when I have to plan…I spend my time at work thinking about this in the back of my mind, feeling anxious about, oh, I have to do this,” Chaudhry said. “We truly believe that all the little tasks that add up to huge things today can be automated out of our lives.”
Chaudhry said the company knows what it’s building, but can’t yet say how users will experience it. His comments suggest that wearable products like Mehta’s glasses are unlikely.
“I’m not the biggest believer in many of the wearable AI platforms that are being talked about right now,” Chaudhry says. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to put a layer between humanity and the interfaces we use in the world. I have a similar discomfort with pins and things like that with cameras rolling.”
When generative AI first appeared, Chaudhry initially thought it was just a flash, but successive generations of models convinced him that it would change his job. The word “hark” means “to pay attention,” and Chaudhry says this helps him frame the company’s mission thoughtfully.
“Traditional user experience is always about finding the simplest thing for everyone,” he told TechCrunch. “The future user experience will be about finding what’s right for each individual, and I believe we can do that. But it will take a lot of effort.”
The focus on elegance and simplicity for the user reflects the high points of Apple’s product design and naturally brings to mind Jony Ive, the legendary former Apple designer who currently develops AI-native hardware at OpenAI. A Hark spokesperson declined to review the comparison.
Another similarity that comes to mind is how Elon Musk’s work on advanced models with xAI aligns with Tesla’s work on self-driving cars and humanoid robots.
There are similar corporate synergies between Adcock’s humanoid robot company, Figure, and the new AI Institute. Hark’s model has already been trained on Figure’s robot, but for unknown purposes. A person familiar with the companies’ plans said there is no intention to merge the two companies.
Hark employs 45 engineers and designers, including former meta-AI researchers and designers from Apple and Tesla, all of whom work on the same campus where Adcock’s other companies are based. Hark plans to start using the new cluster of several thousand Nvidia GPUs in April.
Now, with the backing of $100 million in personal seed money from Adcock, Haack will join the war for talent as the world’s biggest companies seek to find formats to bring deep learning models into everyday life — and at a time when dissatisfaction with existing models for digital life is at its peak.
“I feel like there’s an opportunity for improvement, and I haven’t felt that way since the iPhone came out,” Chaudhry said.
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