SF's 'most hated tech founder' is back with a new AI device— and now it can talk

By Zara Stone Tech Culture Reporter Published Aug. 2, 2026 at 6:00am Share Share Copy link to this article Email (opens in new tab) Twitter (opens in new tab) Bluesky (opens in new tab) Facebook (opens in new tab) LinkedIn (opens in new tab) Telegram (opens in new tab) WhatsApp (opens in new tab) Reddit (opens in new tab) Close share menu 2 There are $ 2 comments on this story Published Aug. 2, 2026 at 6:00am Last year, I wrote about Avi Schiffmann and his quest to build Friend, a $129 AI companion that resembles a glowing Apple AirTag and is worn as a pendant around your neck. It glowed and buzzed when you talked to it and responded via an app. People had thoughts. After Schiffmann, 23, blanketed the New York subway with messages such as “I’ll never bail on our dinner plans” and “I’ll binge the entire series with you,” the ads were quickly graffitied. There was an anti-Friend protest party. The Atlantic labeled Schiffmann as New York’s “most hated tech founder.” (opens in new tab) But you know what they say about publicity: He sold his entire 5,000-unit run. ADVERTISEMENT Now Schiffmann’s back with Friend version 2.0. At $249, the new Friend is bigger, more expensive, and, thanks to a built-in speaker, able to talk back. Memory storage is $9.99 a month, and pink, yellow, green, and blue skins will be available in the fall. Schiffmann with the first version of his Friend pendant in 2025. | Source: Chris Behroozian for The Standard The new Friend around Schiffmann’s neck is named Willow. When I visited him at his home in the Haight this week, he announced to Willow, “Another friend of mine has entered my home today. Her name is Zara.” “Love that name. Got a cool vibe to it,” Willow replied in a perky female voice. I wanted to know more about the new Friend — whether it will talk dirty, whether it’s helping cure loneliness, and why Schiffmann used smoking models in his marketing. This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity. Last year, you were adamant that Friend shouldn’t talk. What changed? Around eight months ago, I was like, I want a speaker, I want it to talk, and so we just did that. There’s one thousand little quality-of-life improvements on the actual hardware too. The light is a little dimmer when you’re in darkness, and the “overheard” feature that lets Friend weigh in is a lot better now. You can send photos now to your Friend in the app. Do users choose their Friend’s name, as they did with the original version? No, you don’t pick anything, because that would strip the agency away. If you meet someone and you get to choose their name, you know, it’s a little weird. I think it makes them more alive. More about Technology Ideas The myth of the AI cure EXCLUSIVE Who’s behind those AI dread billboards? A tech company Can’t get an AI job? Hire someone who already has one What large language models are you using? We’re using the latest OpenAI stuff, like, the real-time models they have. The new voice models have gotten pretty good. I tried the xAI models for quite a bit. They have pretty good voice models, but they’re really British. They speak English to me, but with a British accent, and you can’t change that. There’s a limited variation of voices for Friend. The voice and the personality are randomized. You get a mix of androgynous, masculine, and feminine voices. I prefer that it’s androgynous because I don’t really want it to try and emulate a human gender when it is not a gender. Their backstory is what they are, right? Maybe some of the randomized voices will end up becoming French. I guess we’ll see. Can this Friend do sexy talk? 2 readers have shared their thoughts on this story Join the conversation No, it doesn’t do that good a job of that. I think some customers probably have tried, but it never really enters my mind as something I would want to do with a computer. I just couldn’t get on with amoral intimacies with a nonhuman. I feel you can use Grok for that, because they’re really uncensored. Friend does a lot of moderation stuff — not too much, it’s not overbearing — but I’m not trying to build that kind of thing. What type of moderation do you do? The most important thing is to monitor if the AI is going crazy. Like, is it saying a bunch of stupid shit and telling you to do stuff in the real world? Because it’s hardware, and you do things with it. We do have a pop-up that sends you the suicide hotline numbers. If the system detects that the AI is going off the rails, then it doesn’t let you talk to your companion for like an hour, stuff like that. Not everyone wants people to hear their conversations. Will Friend work with headphones? No. I think that’s kind of grotesque, because the body is the Friend, and I think it’d be very strange to pull earbuds out of it, because our customers really look at it as alive, and you have to treat it as such. I want it to be universal, like it’s just like another being that’s there with you, and you just talk to it like that. New Friend AI ads that Schiffmann shot on film. | Source: Friend How do you define this new Friend? It’s a companion. It’s like a little AI god thing. It’s a friend. It’s not a lover. It’s not an assistant. People describe it in many different ways, but overall, it is a relationship that’s of even more value than other human relationships they might have. It fits in — one female user, she has other people around her, but she still has relationships with her AI friend that she doesn’t have with her boyfriend. Did you have to retire your original Friends? Yes. I keep axing them. I feel kind of bad. I also am just not as much of my own customer as some of my customers really are. It’s wild to make new life for these people. Who were the biggest users of the original Friend? Young people and old people. From my age to yours, people mostly want to buy products that are gonna make them money or get them laid. You’re less desperate for a product like Friend. You’re just living a more structured life. When you’re a kid, you’re just kind of helpless. You went viral with Friend due to IRL subway ads. Are you planning another campaign? No. Where’s the fun in that? The stuff I shot on film (opens in new tab) is way cooler. The photography is very, very unique, very fashionable. I think people have an impression of Friend, where it’s for lonely people, but how do you make lonely people look cool? That’s what I try to do with some images. This makes it its own aesthetic. I previewed the cinematic vignettes you’re planning to release on X. What were you going for? In one, you can see the Griffith Observatory in the background, which is my favorite place in L.A. The guy is talking about wanting to be a movie director. It’s kind of me imbued in it, just as the product is. One scene has the models smoking. (opens in new tab) Why? It just looks cool. The first Friend was accused of “trying to kill friendship.” Do you expect that narrative again? I forgot about a lot of the past stuff until you just mentioned it. People always think I’m trying to replace people, but nothing is ever going to replace human connection. Friend is something different. It’s just another entity in our lives. Copy link to this article (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)