Meta acquires AI device startup Limitless

Limitless, the AI ​​startup formerly known as Rewind, has been acquired by Meta, the company announced Friday website. The company, which created an AI-powered pendant to record your calls, says it will no longer sell its hardware devices and will maintain support for its existing customers for a year.

Customers no longer have to pay subscription fees and will be transferred to the Unlimited Plan for the time being. Other functionality will be phased out, including the non-hanging software “Rewind,” which recorded users’ desktop activity and turned it into a searchable record.

The startup, founded by Brett Bejcek And Dan Siroker, the co-founder and former CEO of Optimalwhich last year emerged as a maker of AI devices and offered its Limitless pendant for $99. The wearable can be attached to your shirt like a wireless microphone or worn as a necklace. The device is one of several AI hardware devices on the market, including another (not very well received) AI pendant known as Friend.

According to Limitless’ announcement, the company shares Meta’s vision to “bring personal super intelligence to everyone,” including building AI-enabled wearables. (Meta is focusing for now on AR/AI glasses, like the Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta, and its in-lens AI glasses, the Meta Ray-Ban Display.) Limitless said it will help bring that vision to life — which likely means supporting Meta’s existing products, not helping Meta add an AI pendant to its lineup.

The company hinted that increased competition in the market made it difficult to compete, especially as the bigger players such as OpenAI and Meta are also developing their own hardware devices.

“When we started Limitless five years ago, the world was a very different place,” Siroker wrote in the announcement. “AI was a dream for many. Hardware startups were considered unfundable, and a company that did both AI and hardware would be considered ridiculous. But today is different. The world has changed. We are no longer working on a strange fringe idea. We are building a future that now seems inevitable. We are not alone.”

Meta shared the following statement with TechCrunch via email: “We are pleased that Limitless will be joining Meta to help accelerate our work to build AI-enabled wearables.” The tech giant hasn’t shared any further information about its plans, other than to say the team will work in Reality Labs’ wearables organization.

Limitless will offer its customers a way to do that export their data, the company said, or users can opt in to delete their data from the app.

The startup had raised more than $33 million in funding from investors including a16z, First Round Capital and NEA.

Updated after publication with Meta’s commentary.