The CosmOS operating system from Humane will be licensed as part of the “strategic partnership.”
The AI firm Humane has revealed aspirations to enter its first overseas market by signing an agreement with South Korean operator SK Telecom.
The San Francisco-based business made the statement soon after disclosing that it was delaying the release of the Ai Pin product from March to mid-April for the domestic market in the United States.
When Humane was established in 2017 by ex-executives from Apple Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri, it had already raised more than $200 million from investors such as Qualcomm Ventures, Microsoft, and Sam Altman of OpenAI before the general public was aware of what the company was doing. The organization hinted at additional information about the gadget in the months before making all of the information officials in June last year.
To put it briefly, Humane has developed the “Ai Pin,” a wearable gadget with an entirely novel shape element packed with artificial intelligence sensors and a tiny projector that can project data onto any surface.
The Ai Pin price is $699, and with an ongoing 24-dollar monthly subscription, users can run as many AI-powered searches as they like with an unlimited data plan and phone number. T-Mobile is acting as Humane’s launch partner in the US market, positioning it as MVNO, the mobile virtual network operator.
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Though Humane has released teasers of the Ai Pin to the public, something has yet to make it from the factory floor to the consumer market. In addition, the company announced layoffs in January, and longtime CTO Patrick Gates resigned from his position, raising doubts that something needed to be corrected with the company.
However, this is good news for Humane since it plans to launch in South Korea in collaboration with the most prominent cell provider in the nation, which will allow it to increase production in the upcoming months.
According to Humane, the partnership goes beyond a straightforward MVNO alliance, as it is a component of a “strategic investment opportunity” in which SK Telecom will license Humane’s CosmOS. This exclusive AI-enabled operating system drives the Ai Pin.
SK Telecom has been enhancing its own AI products lately. It launched A.Dot, a competitor to ChatGPT, back in 2022. At the end of the year, it disclosed its goals of becoming an international AI company by forming alliances with other players worldwide. Additionally, SK Telecom recently said yesterday that it partnered with Perplexity, an AI search engine, to offer its premium “Pro” plan to all 32 million members.
Today’s release stated that the two firms will collaborate on new subscription offers and generate new revenue potential for an appless OS and ecosystem in the Korean market. The capacity to which SK Telecom may rely on CosmOS is still being determined.
The Ai Pin’s potential release date in South Korea is likewise unknown. But considering the current hold-ups in the US launch, we should wait to expect it.
