Last week, HP made an intriguing acquisition deal by purchasing a portion of Humane, the company behind the development of AI-powered wearable device, AI Pin, which has faced challenges since its launch. This deal may indicate that hardware AI is still a tough nut to crack, but the specifics of this deal reveal what HP is interested in.
According to TechCrunch, internal documents from Humane reveal that after HP announced this acquisition plan, some Humane employees were immediately offered to join HP with a salary increase of 30-70% from their current pay, along with some HP shares. Most of these employees are from the software development team, but not everyone received the offer. Employees from other departments such as hardware, QA, and operations received emails about the shutdown of operations and their dismissal.
This offer reflects HP’s desire to bolster their software development team for AI by integrating them into the newly established HP IQ team to develop AI software for various devices that HP distributes. However, Humane did not develop its own AI model but instead created software that operates on models from elsewhere.
Reports indicate that Humane employees were not surprised by these events, as there were rumors since last year of the company negotiating with HP. This time, the deal was valued at $116 million, less than the $240 million raised from investors. Additionally, Humane executives had informed employees earlier about significant news expected by the end of January.
As time passes, the saga of AI Pin may suggest that AI hardware might have arrived prematurely. The lingering question is, when will this actually come to fruition?
Source: TechCrunch
TLDR: HP acquires part of Humane, offering some employees salary increases and shares, signaling a focus on software development for AI, while issues with AI Pin raise questions about the readiness of AI hardware.
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