Introducing the New Conversational AI Pendant with Interactive Features

Friend CEO Avi Schiffmann invites me into what he describes as his palace—a spacious apartment in San Francisco.

He lounges on the couch in his living room, dressed in an orange shirt featuring a cartoon depiction of Italian racer Valentino Rossi’s motorcycle. With his feet resting on a side table, he leans back, showcasing a round, softly illuminated circular Friend pendant hanging from a yellow cord around his neck.

This represents the second version of the Friend necklace, the controversial AI companion device that has garnered criticism from nearly everyone (myself included). The company unveiled the device on Thursday via its new X handle.

The initial version of Friend was an always-listening AI wearable that interacted through text messages. The significant improvement this time is a speaker on the back, enabling the device to vocalize its responses. This modification has altered the shape of the pendant, making the underside bulkier due to the speaker. Additionally, its AI capabilities have received an upgrade, now incorporating OpenAI’s latest models.

Courtesy of Friend

Similar to its predecessor, Friend is designed to be a digital companion for users to converse with extensively. Unlike the original version, every new pendant arrives with a randomly assigned voice and personality. Users cannot modify the voice or name, effectively locking them into that Friend. (Your experience may vary regarding how amicable the device is towards you.)

The updated pendant retails for $249, significantly higher than the original’s $129 price tag. It’s available for purchase now on Friend.com, a domain Schiffmann acquired for $1.8 million. There’s also an optional $10 monthly subscription that allows the AI to retain your conversations for longer than 30 days. The colorful cord around Schiffmann’s neck is part of an accessory collection he says will launch later this year.

Schiffmann first made headlines in 2020 as a 17-year-old who created a website to monitor Covid-19 cases during the pandemic. Now 24, he is better known—and even somewhat infamous—for heading a company that produces a device many have criticized as dystopian or reminiscent of something straight out of a Black Mirror episode.

“I’ve matured a lot,” Schiffmann mentions almost every time we meet.

Behind the couch, a massive framed image of a Paris subway station displays ads for the Friend pendant plastered across its walls. These advertisements, placed by Schiffmann’s company in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago in 2025—and Paris in early 2026—ignited significant backlash and controversy surrounding AI applications. Protesters defaced them, claiming they undermined humanity’s value, leading to a flurry of impactful headlines about the ads. The marketing gained far more attention than the actual product did. (Schiffmann later reveals that the frame for this photo in his home cost $500, but later corrected the price to $5,000.)