Friend re-launches its AI pendant with a speaker that talks to you, for twice the price

Do you remember Friend? The Friend that launched an AI pendant, spent $1.8 million of its $2.5 million to acquire friend.com, and plastered the NYC subway with ads promoting artificial companionship? Yeah well, if you didn’t remember, Friend is back. And now, it’s twice the price. [Media: https://twitter.com/friend/status/2082827641338658873?s=20] This morning, Friend launched a new ad showing two people talking to their Friend pendants about very personal life problems. It didn’t say it explicitly, but the ad showcased a new feature the pendant now includes: a speaker. Before, Friend would only message back to you, but now, it will talk to you, too. For some reason, the addition of that feature is apparently worth $120, as the originally $129 product now costs $249. The re-launch comes about nine months after a large Friend protest took place in NYC, where protestors tried to bring attention to our growing dependance on technology. Friend was the obvious target, considering it had spend a boatload of money advertising throughout the city. Its founder, Avi Schiffmann, even posted an image promoting the protest, and showed up to it himself. Shiffmann posted a tweet of the new ad, calling it “Friend 2.0,” even though the product is still just called “Friend” on its site. I’m sure things will go much better this time.