My Friend Has No Soul
The second-generation Friend AI necklace is louder—and somehow less interesting
By Boone Ashworth | Gear | October 14, 2026
Image caption: Lily-Rose Depp models the Friend AI necklace. Courtesy of Friend
In 2026, a few years into the AI hardware gold rush, the pitch is still the same: ambient, always-on AI companions that live on your body rather than in your pocket. The Friend AI necklace—the viral pendant from founder Avi Schiffmann that promised a "friend" you could wear around your neck—has returned in a second iteration. It is louder. It is also, according to WIRED's Boone Ashworth, less interesting.
(Full article content truncated in the source provided. The following describes the piece and the context around it.)
What the Friend Necklace Is
The Friend is a small, always-listening wearable designed to be worn as a pendant. Unlike a smartwatch or a screen-based device, the Friend is meant to be an ambient companion. You talk to it; it talks back in text or audio, remembers your conversations, and forms a light layer of synthetic personality—an AI "friend" rather than an AI assistant.
The original Friend generated outsized attention online in the mid-2020s, in part because of its unusual marketing campaign, its ambitious positioning, and the broader cultural conversation about AI companionship. It also drew scrutiny: privacy researchers and critics questioned what an always-on microphone around your neck actually captures, and how that data is stored, shared, or sold.
The Second Iteration in 2026
By 2026, the ambient AI companion category has become more crowded. Competitors now include screen-free pins, earbuds with persistent assistants, and a growing category of "AI companion" glasses. The Friend's second version arrives in a market that is simultaneously more skeptical and more saturated.
Ashworth's review argues that the updated Friend turns up the volume on its personality without solving the underlying problem: the device is more performance than presence. Rather than adding meaningful capability or deeper memory, the second iteration leans on louder, quirkier dialogue and more attention-grabbing behavior—which reads as noise rather than soul.
Why It Matters
The Friend necklace is a useful bellwether for the AI hardware market. As more companies ship always-on, body-worn AI devices in 2026, the questions this review raises apply broadly:
- Does an AI companion solve a real problem, or is it a novelty?
- What happens to privacy when the microphone never turns off?
- Is "personality" a substitute for usefulness—or a distraction from it?
The verdict on the second Friend is a familiar one for the AI wearable era: the tech is getting louder, but not necessarily better. The question for 2026 and beyond is whether ambient AI hardware can move past novelty and toward something genuinely worth wearing.
Editor's note: This piece was originally published by WIRED on October 14, 2026, in the Gear section.
via Wired AI