Humane’s daily returns are outpacing sales

Shortly after Humane released its $699 AI Pin in April, the returns started flowing in.

Between May and August, more AI Pins were returned than purchased, according to internal sales data obtained by The Verge. By June, only around 8,000 units hadn’t been returned, a source with direct knowledge of sales and return data told me. As of today, the number of units still in customer hands had fallen closer to 7,000, a source with direct knowledge said.

At launch, the AI Pin was met with overwhelmingly negative reviews. Our own David Pierce said it “just doesn’t work,” and Marques Brownlee called it “the worst product” he’s ever reviewed. Now, Humane is attempting to stabilize its operations and maintain confidence among staff and potential acquirers. The New York Times reported in June that HP is considering purchasing the company, and The Information reported last week that Humane is negotiating with its current investors to raise debt, which could later be converted into equity.

Humane’s AI Pin and accessories have brought in just over $9 million in lifetime sales, according to the internal data seen by The Verge. But around 1,000 purchases were canceled before shipping, and more than $1 million worth of product has been returned.

These figures, which have not been reported before, paint a better picture of the difficult position Humane finds itself in with limited options on a path forward. The low sales figures also pale in comparison to the over $200 million that Humane has raised from notable Silicon Valley executives like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. To date, around 10,000 Pins and accessories have shipped in total. Humane hoped to ship about 100,000 Pins within the first year, according to a source with knowledge of the plan and first reported by The New York Times.

Zoz Cuccias, a spokesperson for Humane, said there were inaccuracies to The Verge’s reporting, “including the financial data.” When pressed about the specifics of those inaccuracies, Cuccias said “we have nothing else to provide as we do not comment on financial data, and will refer it to our legal counsel.”

Once a Humane Pin is returned, the company has no way to refurbish it, sources with knowledge of the return process confirmed. The Pin becomes e-waste, and Humane doesn’t have the opportunity to reclaim the revenue by selling it again. The core issue is that there is a T-Mobile limitation that makes it impossible (for now) for Humane to reassign a Pin to a new user once it’s been assigned to someone. One source said they don’t believe Humane has disposed of the old Pins because “they’re still hopeful they can solve this problem eventually.” T-Mobile declined to comment and referred us to Humane.

“We knew we were at the starting line, not the finish line” when the AI Pin launched, Cucias wrote via email. She said that Humane has since released several software updates to “address user feedback.”

There has been some notable turnover in Humane’s executive roles in recent months. Humane’s director of customer experience, Tori Geiken, disappeared from the company’s internal Slack last week, sources say. One source said the employees who worked under Geiken weren’t given official notice about her leaving. Geiken didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

Humane has also seen turnover in its software engineering leadership since the start of the year. Jeremy Werner, the vice president of engineering who joined Humane while it was still building in secret, Patrick Gates, the former CTO, and Ken Kocienda, the head of product engineering, all left Humane with little explanation to their staff, according to sources. In January, Humane laid off 4 percent of employees as a cost cutting measure ahead of the AI Pin’s launch.

Cucias told The Verge that “we continue to build an incredibly talented and deeply experienced team” and are “committed to unlocking a new era of ambient and contextual computing” with the addition of Rubén Caballero, chief engineering and strategy officer, to Humane’s leadership team in June.

Imran Chaudhri, president and cofounder of Humane, debuted the product to significant buzz when he first demoed the AI Pin onstage during a TED Talk in April 2023. Both Chaudhri and his wife, Bethany Bongiorno, cofounder and CEO of Humane, previously worked at Apple, where they claimed involvement in developing the Macintosh, iPod, iPad, Apple Watch, and iPhone. On the day the bad reviews started to emerge, Bongiorno posted on X, “This is the starting point. No gen 1 is perfect nor is it ever the complete vision.”

Humane’s leadership appears to have ignored some warning signs that those bad reviews were coming. After a small group of testers — which included the cofounders’ parents and friends, several investors, and employees — received Pins prior to the device’s public launch, many voiced concerns about the product. One alpha tester contacted customer support to describe the product as “disorienting” and “frustrating” and described the many ways the product failed to replicate abilities shown in demo videos. A source said the early feedback “ripped through the company like a bullet.” They launched the AI Pin anyway.