Amazon has reached a deal to acquire Bee, a San Francisco-based startup that makes an artificial intelligence-enabled wristband designed to listen to and transcribe conversations.

The acquisition was announced by Bee chief executive officer and co-founder Maria de Lourdes Zollo in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday. "What began as a dream with an incredible team and community now finds a new home at Amazon," she wrote.

Bee's Pioneer bracelet, priced at $49.99, records and transcribes the owner's activities using artificial intelligence to populate to-do lists, create summaries of conversations, and generate personalised reminders. The device can also be granted permission to access emails, contacts, location data, reminders, photos, and calendar events to help inform its AI-generated insights.

The startup, incorporated as Bluush Inc., was founded in 2022 and raised approximately $8.5 million from investors according to PitchBook data. Amazon spokesperson Alexandra Miller confirmed all Bee employees have received offers to join Amazon as part of the deal, though she declined to reveal the acquisition price. The transaction has not yet closed.

Miller said Bee was working to give customers more control over the device, which has a mute button but by default works as an ongoing AI transcriber of its user's interactions. "We design our products to protect our customers' privacy and security and to make it easy for them to be in control of their experience - and this approach would of course apply to Bee," she said in an emailed statement.

The acquisition marks Amazon's return to the wearables market after previously building its own wrist-worn devices under the Halo brand, which were pitched as health trackers. The Halo project was discontinued in 2023 as part of broader cuts to experimental hardware in Amazon's devices unit.

Amazon has been expanding its artificial intelligence offerings, including the recent launch of its Nova models, Trainium chips, and an overhaul of its Alexa voice assistant with enhanced AI capabilities. The company could potentially incorporate Bee technology into future Alexa devices.

In her LinkedIn post, Zollo thanked Amazon devices executive Panos Panay, suggesting Bee would join his group when the deal closes. "When we started Bee, we imagined a world where AI is truly personal, where your life is understood and enhanced by technology that learns with you," she wrote.

The move comes as other technology companies have launched AI-infused consumer hardware with mixed results, including the Rabbit R1 gadget and Humane's AI pin. OpenAI recently acquired former Apple designer Jony Ive's AI device startup io for approximately $6.4 billion.

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