Amazon Acquires Startup Bee, Ready To Present More Personal AI

Amazon acquisition of Bee (photo: LinkedIn founder of Bee Maria de happened to Zollo)

JAKARTA - Amazon has officially acquired artificial intelligence startup (AI) Bee. This news was announced directly by Bee co-founder Maria de happened to Zollo, in a post on his LinkedIn account.

He said that since the beginning of Bee's establishment, his vision was to create a world where AI was truly personal capable of understanding and improving user life with technology that grew with them.

"Bee joins Amazon and we are very happy. When we started Bee, we imagined a world where Al is truly personal, where your life is understood and improved by the technology you study with," he wrote.

Bee is known as a startup that makes bracelets with artificial intelligence technology to listen to and copy conversations.

The Bee bracelet, which is priced at 50 US dollars (IDR 814 thousand), can analyze and filter the recorded data to create a summary, list of tasks, or other tasks.

"What started out as a dream with an amazing team and community is now finding a new home on Amazon," Zollo continued. He also expressed his gratitude to the users, investors, and the entire Bee team for realizing this achievement.

A spokesperson told Reuters Amazon would be working with Bee to give users greater control over the device, which is set to transcribed audio automatically but can be muted.

However, there are no details on the deal regarding this acquisition. This is not the first time Amazon has entered the world of wearables.

The Seattle online retailer marketed an wrist health tracker line called Halo, but eventually stopped the project in 2023.

Amazon also has an integrated smart glasses line with Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa, under its Echo brand.