Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has agreed to acquire Bee, a San Francisco startup behind a $49.99 AI wristband that listens to conversations, transcribes speech, and generates personalized reminders, summaries, and to-do lists, according to media reports.
Bee CEO Maria de Lourdes Zollo announced on LinkedIn that the acquisition will help "bring truly personal, agentic AI to even more customers." Amazon confirmed the pending purchase to Benzinga while noting the deal is yet closed. Financial terms were not disclosed, though the startup raised $7 million in 2024. Bee’s website lists Exor and Greycroft among its investors.
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A $50 Wearable That Listens, Learns and Remembers Your Day
Bee's flagship product, the Pioneer wristband, resembles a Fitbit-like device and uses dual microphones with AI to capture conversations and convert speech to text in real time, according to Bee's website.
TechCrunch says that consumers can subscribe for $19 per month, enabling access to AI-powered daily summaries, reminders, and actionable insights generated through the Bee app. According to The Verge, users may also grant the device access to emails, contacts, photos, calendar entries, and location data to enrich AI analysis and support searchable life logs.
Recognizing privacy sensitivity, TechCrunch says that Bee emphasizes user control and data deletion at any time, and is developing features to restrict recording by location or topic.
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Privacy vs. Convenience: The AI Wristband Dilemma
TechCrunch reports that products like Bee pose significant security and privacy risks because they record everything around them, and different companies vary in how voice recordings are processed, stored, and used for AI training.
Amazon spokesperson Alexandra Miller told The Verge that the company "cares deeply" about customer privacy and security when asked about whether Bee's current privacy measures would remain in place after the deal closes.
Miller added that Amazon will work with Bee to give users "even greater control over" their devices and emphasized that Amazon has "never been in the business of selling our customers' personal information to others," The Verge says.
According to Bee's privacy policies, users can delete their data at any time, and audio recordings are not saved, stored, or used for AI training, though the app retains data the AI learns about each user to function as a personal assistant.
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Bee has also indicated that it plans to only record the voices of people who verbally consent and is developing features to let users set boundaries based on topic or location that automatically pause the device's learning, TechCrunch reports. The company noted plans to expand on‑device AI processing, which may pose fewer privacy risks than cloud‑based processing.
Early testers, including reviewers from The Verge, observed that Bee sometimes misinterprets background media such as TV shows or music as human conversation, which can distort the summaries and insights it generates.
Why This Acquisition Marks Amazon's AI Reinvention
The Bee deal follows Amazon's earlier exit from the Halo fitness tracker market in 2023 and places it among other tech companies advancing AI wearables. According to Reuters, the move aligns Amazon alongside technology peers such as OpenAI, which acquired Jony Ive's AI‑design firm, Meta (NASDAQ:META), with Ray‑Ban smart glasses, and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), rumored to be preparing its own AI eyewear.
TechCrunch says Bee's staff have already received offers to join Amazon, signaling near-term integration of the startup's technology and team.
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