Amazon to Acquire AI-Powered Bracelet Maker Bee

The move was announced by Bee CEO Maria de Lourdes Zollo in a Tuesday (July 22) LinkedIn post, and an Amazon spokeswoman said that a deal is signed but the agreement has not yet closed, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Wednesday (July 23).

In her post, Zollo said that by joining Amazon, Bee will be able to bring this “personal, agentic AI” to more customers.

“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,” Zollo said in the post. “What began as a dream with an incredible team and community now finds a new home at Amazon.”

According to the WSJ report, the Bee wearable device is always listening and keeps a transcription, not audio.

The Amazon spokeswoman said in the report that the controls Amazon offers on other products will also apply to Bee.

The spokeswoman did not comment on Amazon’s motivations for acquiring Bee, per the report.

The report said that data can be used to train AI models and make them more helpful to users, that Amazon recently enhanced its voice assistant with generative AI to create the beta release of Alexa+, and that other companies are developing AI wearable devices as well.

It highlighted Google’s Pixel earbuds, Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses, Samsung’s Galaxy devices and former Apple design chief Jony Ive’s work to develop a new device for OpenAI.

Amazon entered the wearables market in August 2020 with wristband device called Halo that incorporated AI and tracked various health and performance indicators. The company said in April 2023 that it would stop supporting the Halo devices in July 2023 in a move to refocus its business.

Experts believe AI wearables could dramatically alter the retail landscape because they offer merchants a potential goldmine of real-time consumer data, enabling hyper-targeted marketing and product development, PYMNTS reported in August.

AI is driving a boom in smart glasses, PYMNTS reported in February. The latest generation of these devices are encased in traditional frames of various styles that don’t look out of place in public and carry serious electronics to power AI capabilities like online searches and translations.