Good rings, sensible screens, sensible TVs, sensible pins, sensible … ice cube makers? Positive, why not! AI was in all places at this yr’s Shopper Electronics Present (CES) in Las Vegas, the place corporations giant and small have been displaying off how they’re bringing AI to extra units. For Amazon, CES was a time to point out off its newest acquisition in the space: Bee, an AI machine that may be worn as a clip-on pin or a bracelet.
Amazon already has an entry within the AI shopper units house with Alexa, whose upgraded AI-powered model, Alexa+, can run on 97% of the hardware devices Amazon has shipped. Nonetheless, with Bee, the corporate is getting access to a wearable that might lengthen its attain outdoors the house.
Largely designed for recording conversations like interviews, conferences, or courses, Bee additionally works as an AI companion. The AI has entry to world information, and it learns extra about you from a mix of your recordings and the providers you allow it to entry like Gmail, Google Calendar, your cellphone’s contacts, and Apple Well being.
On condition that Amazon has already tried integrating Alexa into wearables like earbuds and glasses, it might appear to be the corporate is muddying the waters with the addition of one other AI companion. Nonetheless, these earlier Alexa units haven’t taken off within the face of competitors like Apple’s AirPods and Meta’s Ray Ban AI glasses. Amazon appears to grasp this, which is why it’s including Bee to its lineup.
“We see one another as complementary associates,” says Bee co-founder Maria de Lourdes Zollo of Bee’s relationship with Alexa, in an interview at CES final week. “Bee has the understanding of outdoor the home, and Alexa has the understanding of inside the home. In fact, there might be a future the place these two issues come collectively.”
That future doesn’t but imply Bee’s AI might be changed by Alexa. Famous Amazon Alexa VP Daniel Rausch, Amazon thinks what the workforce at Bee created is an “necessary and lovable expertise.” He describes Bee as a “deeply partaking and private” AI, however he additionally agreed that, in some unspecified time in the future, Alexa and Bee would come collectively.
“We all know that it’ll create much more profit for patrons than what [the AI experiences] do on their very own,” Rausch defined. “When you may have entry to the ability of those AI experiences with you all through the day, and so they’re steady — we’re gonna find a way to take action way more for patrons.”
De Lourdes Zollo stated that Bee learns from its customers, gaining an understanding of their patterns, insights, and commitments, which will help it to counsel to-do gadgets and follow-ups all through your day.
Early use circumstances have included college students who file lectures, aged individuals who have hassle remembering issues, and individuals who converse for a residing and don’t wish to all the time take notes manually.
“They simply need a spot to have all of the summarization of all the pieces they stated,” Bee’s co-founder stated. “So based mostly on that, we construct a extremely massive graph of information [about] you, the place you’ll be able to go chat with Bee, and have an understanding of what occurred to you, but additionally the way you’re altering in the course of the course of your life,” de Lourdes Zollo added.
Just like Alexa, Bee makes use of a mix of AI fashions below the hood, however it’s exploring including Amazon’s AI as one within the combine. After transcribing the dialog, Bee discards the audio, making it impractical for a lot of work-related use circumstances the place you have to play again the dialog to make sure accuracy.
There’s nonetheless a lot forward for Bee in 2026, de Lourdes Zollo teased, with out giving something away. Along with latest bulletins of new features and functionality — like voice notes, templates, every day insights, and extra — the founder stated the eight-person workforce is engaged on “many new issues” out of their HQ in San Francisco, the place Amazon already has numerous {hardware} and Alexa workers.
“Actually, it’s countless prospects now, and that’s one of many explanation why we’re actually excited to be a part of Amazon,” she stated.
