Amazon to acquire AI startup Bee that offer wearables to record daily conversations

Amazon is set to acquire a startup named Bee that specialises in AI on-wrist devices. In a post shared on social networking site LinkedIn, Bee’s CEO

Maria de Lourdes Zollo

confirmed this and said that this acquisition will “bring truly personal, agentic AI to even more customers.” Currently, Bee offers a $49.99 Fitbit-like AI-based device to transcribe conversations. This allows the device to generate personalised summaries of daily activities, reminders, and suggestions within the Bee app. Users can also grant the device permission to access their emails, contacts, location, reminders, photos, and calendar events. This data helps inform the AI-generated insights and creates a searchable history of user activities.

What Bee CEO said about Amazon’s acquisition

In her LinkedIn post, Zollo wrote: “Bee is joining Amazon and we couldn’t be more excited! When we started Bee, we imagined a world where AI is truly personal, where your life is understood and enhanced by technology that learns with you.

What began as a dream with an incredible team and community now finds a new home at Amazon. Ethan and I couldn’t think of better partners to help us bring truly personal, agentic AI to even more customers. Thank you to everyone who believed in us: our users, investors, and the entire Bee team. You made this milestone possible. Huge gratitude to Panos Panay and Nick Komorous for championing our vision and guiding us through this journey.”

How Bee’s AI device works

According to a report by The Verge, when tested, the device often misinterpreted background media such as TV shows, TikTok videos, music, and movies as real-life conversations.As per the report, Amazon was also asked about its plans to apply the same privacy measures offered by Bee, such as its policy against storing audio. Responding to this the Amazon’s spokesperson, Alexandra Miller, said that the company “cares deeply” about customer privacy and security.The company also confirmed that it will work with Bee to offer users “even greater control over” their devices as the deal closes.“We’ve been strong stewards of customer data since our founding, and have never been in the business of selling our customers’ personal information to others. We design our products to protect our customers’ privacy and security and to make it easy for them to be in control of their experience — and this approach would of course apply to Bee,” Miller noted.Miller also added that the terms of the deal are “confidential,” and that all Bee employees have “received offers to join Amazon.”