Stephen Hackett throwing some cold water on the io products hype:
To be clear, the failure of the Rabbit R1 and Humane AI Pin does not mean that there’s no room in the market for an AI-powered device with no screen. However, people really like their phones, and creating a product that will compete with the smartphone is a hill no one has successfully climbed to date.
I don’t agree that the Rabbit R1 was a failure. It fell short of expectations, but that team is still churning away. A new kind of AI-first device is still more likely to come from someone new, without the smartphone baggage.