On the 18th February 2025, it was announced that HP has entered a definitive agreement to acquire key AI capabilities from Humane, including its AI-powered platform Cosmos, highly-skilled technical talent, and intellectual property with over 300 patents and patent applications. The transaction will total $116 million, and is expected to close at the end of the month.

The acquisition deal will bring a highly skilled group of Humane engineers, architects, and product innovators to HP IQ, HP’s new AI innovation lab focused on building an intelligent ecosystem across HP’s products and services for the future of work.

Humane Co-Founders, Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri, commented on this update: “We’re excited to join HP at such a pivotal moment in the industry and help shape the future of intelligent experiences. HP’s scale, global reach, and operational excellence – combined with our design-led approach, integration technology, and engineering expertise – will redefine workforce productivity.”

So, where does this leave the Ai Pin?

HP is not interested in the pin itself, so along with the announcement of the acquisition, Humane had some difficult news to break.

Effective immediately, the company is winding down the pin, and new purchases of the product will be discontinued. For those that still own the Ai Pin, it will continue functioning until 12pm PST on February 28th 2025, and after this date, it will no longer connect to Humane’s servers, and Centre access will be fully retired. This gives users 10 days from the announcement to continue enjoying their product before it becomes useless.

After the 28th February, the Ai Pin will no longer feature calls, messages, AI queries and responses, or Cloud access. In the official announcement, Humane urges users to sync their Ai Pin and download any stored pictures, videos, and notes from .Center before 12pm PST on the 28th February, as from that moment, all consumer data will be permanently deleted.

While Humane's Ai Pin may have failed to revolutionise wearable technology and replace the smartphone’s place in people’s lives, its short-lived existence serves as a cautionary tale for startups, and provides lessons for the next-generation of innovators that will look to create something similar.

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