Three AI products that flopped in 2024
Artificial intelligence is the hip new craze sweeping the globe, with corporations everywhere attempting to shove machine learning tech into every nook and cranny they can find. Unfortunately, such an overenthusiastic approach can sometimes result in tech being applied regardless of whether it's actually a good fit. With everyone eager to boast that their shiny new product uses AI, it's become a classic case of companies being so preoccupied with whether or not they can use the tech, that they don't stop to wonder if they should.
Rabbit r1
The Rabbit r1 debuted to a frenzy of interest in January, selling 20,000 units within just two days. This $200 AI voice assistant seemed to promise the world in a handheld orange box, using a Large Action Model to navigate apps on your phone in order to complete tasks given to it via voice commands. The Rabbit r1 can also take photos, describe what it's seeing on its camera, recommend recipes based on a photo of ingredients, and summarise written text.
According to Rabbit CEO Jesse Lyu, the idea was apparently to offer a more focused, less intrusive experience than a phone. Rather than open your Uber app to order a ride, you'd just tell Rabbit r1 to do it for you. Unfortunately, excitement soon gave way to disappointment when it became clear the Rabbit r1 was buggy, underwhelming, and undercooked, offering more dreams and potential than solid, usable product.
Meta's AI Personas
Meta's AI Personas were basically chatbots that used celebrity likenesses. CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled AI Personas last September, proudly launching the beta for the celebrity lookalike chatbots. By August the chatbots were dead, barely surviving just one year.
AI Personas were not AI versions of celebrities, though some of the chatbots' personalities did have faint connections to the person whose face it was wearing. However, the result was just awkward, creepy, and unsettling. Meta touted AI Personas as fun interactions with unique personalities, but it seemed you could get a close to the same effect just looking at a photo of your favourite actor while using ChatGPT.
Humane's Ai pin
Last November Humane opened preorders for its Ai pin, a $699 wearable AI gadget that responds to voice commands and operates without a smartphone. Like the Rabbit r1, Humane aimed to change the way people operate and interact with their tech, and "integrate AI into the fabric of daily life."
Yet despite Humane's lofty sci-fi ambitions, issues with the Ai pin began to appear before the devices were even released. The Ai pin began shipping in April, and the reviews started coming in. A consensus soon emerged that while Humane's Ai pin had some cool ideas in theory, in practice, it's slow and frustrating to use.
