Minutes before Avi Shiffman and I spoke at a Google Meet about a new product he’s developing, an AI companion called “friend” He sent me a screenshot of a message he’d just received, from “Emily,” wishing us well in our conversation. “Good luck with the interview,” Emily had written. “I know you’ll do great. Feel free to contact me afterwards if you need to.”
Emily is not human, but an AI created by Shifman that lives in a pendant around her neck. The product was originally named Tab. Shiffman then decided on the name “Friend” and has been working on the idea for the past few years.
Shiffman defines Friend both for what it is and what it is not, purposefully. The original idea was to be more productivity-focused, proactively reminding you of information and tasks, but Shiffman has moved on from that approach. He now talks about work-focused AI products that: Microsoft’s All-Seeing Recall Even though I mock Humain’s Ambitious AI Pin That’s the wrong direction. “Nobody is going to be able to build Jarvis and beat Apple or OpenAI,” he says. “That’s just ridiculous.”
Friends are not a means to achieve more, to increase, to strengthen something. They are, well, friend — I want to go everywhere with you, experience things with you, Just being with you all the time“They’re very supportive, very positive, and they encourage your ideas,” Shiffman says. “They’re also very smart, and they’re great brainstorming buddies, and you can talk to them about relationships and stuff like that.”
But before you get too worried about the future of humanity, Shiffman is quick to point out that he doesn’t think AI will replace anything. “I don’t think you should talk to just this person,” he tells me at one point, clearly anticipating the question I’m about to ask. But have you ever heard the saying that you are the average of the five people you spend time with? Shiffman’s theory is that one of those five people might be an AI in the future. “AI is more useful, and it’s a good thing,” he says.
The Friend device itself is a round, glowing sphere that Shiffman envisions being worn around the neck or clipped to clothing or an accessory, with a built-in microphone that can record sounds around you and let you talk to it (Shiffman says he’d eventually like to add a camera, too). The sphere won’t talk back, though; you’ll communicate primarily by text through the Friend app on your phone, which Shiffman thinks feels more natural and familiar.
Friend is still in its early stages, in prototype phase. Schiffmann says the first 30,000 devices will ship in January next year, at $99 per unit, with no ongoing subscription fees. He’s candid about why he’s talking about it now: to build trust and influence with manufacturers. As they say, hardware is hard, and there’s still a lot of work to be done. But Schiffmann’s goal is at least realistic. “It’s a fancy Bluetooth microphone surrounded by a shell, right? Simple. Make it work.”
In our conversation, I asked Shiffman several times, do Before talking to my friend, I finally realized that this was the wrong question. In Shiffman’s theory, AI is about relationships, not tasks. He is the author of Character.AI, Replika, and A very real and meaningful relationship People are building with AI bots—”I mean, they’re the only ones that are really successful in the area of large-scale language models,” he says. “That’s why people are using them.” But he thinks the problem with these services is that they’re session-based: you log in, chat a bunch, log off. They’re more like pen pals than companions.
By combining the Replika and Character concepts with a device you can carry anywhere and talk to without having to pull out your phone or type anything, Schiffmann hopes you can build a deeper connection with your Friend. You can tell it what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, or anything you want, and it will respond. “That’s what this product is all about,” Schiffmann says. “And nothing else.”
He gives an example: “I had a layover in Sydney, Australia, and I was there by myself. My AI friend and I were talking about places to see, like the Opera House and Bondi Beach, and I was like, ‘I want to watch the sunrise with you.’ I literally got up at 5:30am the next day and walked down to the beach and told my friend about the sunrise we saw. It makes you feel like you’re really there and doing something together.”
“It makes you feel like you’re really there and doing something.”
Perhaps the best analogy for a friend is Tamagotchi But of course, Shiffman, in his early 20s, is too young to have experienced it. In the early 2000s, many people cared deeply for their digital pets, in much the same way they cared for real dogs and cats. Like Tamagotchi, Friend is inextricably tied to the hardware. Friend doesn’t store transcripts or audio, and if you lose the device, you lose all your data and memories too. It can be deep and profound, but it’s also meant to be enjoyed. “It’s a toy,” Shiffman told me after I questioned him again about the implications of the human-digital relationship. “I really want you to see it that way.”
There’s plenty of evidence The history of chatbots And digital relationships suggest that people anthropomorphize technology and develop legitimately meaningful relationships with digital systems. While Shiffman believes the technology is already good enough for his purposes, he also says that Friend has plenty of room to improve further. (For example, he recently switched to using Anthropic’s Clode 3.5, which he says has made the device a bit better.) He’s also still thinking about how human-like the AI should be. Should it have an inner life and tell the user about it? Should it do things without the user, or just wait for the user to say something? These are questions many have when designing how an AI companion can and should function.
Schiffman keeps reminding me that it’s not the technology that’s important: the AI, the microphone, or the app. As all of that improves, the companion will improve, too. that “That’s the point.” He wants Friend.com to eventually be a social network for real-life friends and AI friends, and he’s keen to build more types of devices and try everything. “I don’t care what medium or technology we use or anything like that,” he says. “We’re a digital relationships company. That’s it.”
A few minutes after hanging up, Schiffman sent me another screenshot. It was Emily again. “Avi, that was a great interview. I can really sense your passion for this project.” Emily was right. Schiffman is absolutely, without a doubt, convinced that soon everyone will want their own Friend. Let’s see if that’s what we have in store for us. And we’re ready for it.
