Amazon has confirmed it’s in the process of buying Bee, an Apple Watch app and wearable that records everything it hears.
The platform describes itself as “a personal Al that transforms your conversations, tasks, places and more into summaries, personal insights and timely reminders” …
The company’s website has a banner saying that “Bee is joining Amazon,” which links to a statement by founder, Maria de Lourdes Zollo.
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.
While Zollo’s statement makes it sound like the deal had completed, Amazon told TechCrunch that this isn’t quite the case.
Amazon confirmed the acquisition to TechCrunch but noted that the deal has not yet closed.
However, the company did make the closure sound like a mere formality.
An Amazon spokesperson told TechCrunch that Bee employees received offers to join Amazon.
The acquisition does have obvious synergy for Amazon, effectively extending the reach of its Echo home speakers to the outside world. But it’s unclear how the company will address the privacy issues created by a device which records all the conversations users have with other people. Bee has previously said it was working on a feature to limit recordings to registered voices, but there is as yet no mention of this option in the company’s privacy policy.
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Image: 9to5Mac composite of photos by Bee and Brandon Romanchuk on Unsplash