Friend relaunches AI pendant with speaker, doubles price to $249
The AI pendant that burned $1.8M on friend.com now talks — and costs twice as much.
Remember Friend? The AI pendant company that spent $1.8 million of its $2.5 million seed funding to buy friend.com, then plastered NYC subways with ads for artificial companionship? It's back — and twice as expensive. Founder Avi Schiffmann unveiled "Friend 2.0" in a new ad showing people talking to their pendants about personal problems. The device now includes a speaker, allowing the pendant to talk back instead of just sending messages. That single addition raises the price from $129 to $249, a 93% increase, with no explanation beyond the hardware change.
On top of the higher device cost, Friend is introducing a $10 per month subscription that keeps conversations in memory for longer than the default 30 days. The relaunch lands about nine months after a large protest in NYC, where demonstrators criticized growing tech dependence — with Friend as the focal point. Schiffmann even promoted the protest and attended. The product is still called "Friend" on its site, but the company positions this as a major upgrade. The question remains whether adding a speaker and a subscription tier can justify the steep price hike for a product that faced heavy backlash from its first launch.
- Friend's AI pendant price jumps from $129 to $249, a 93% increase, with the only new feature being a speaker for two-way voice conversations.
- A new $10/month subscription extends conversation memory beyond the standard 30 days, adding a recurring revenue stream.
- The relaunch comes after a $1.8M domain purchase and NYC protests, with founder Avi Schiffmann dubbing it "Friend 2.0" despite the same product name.
Why It Matters
A 93% price hike on a novelty AI gadget shows hardware margins and subscription pressure reshaping consumer AI — even amid public backlash.