About

Friend is an AI pin device in the form of a pendant that communicates with the wearer by sending them messages or push notifications with its opinions regarding what is going on. After a reveal trailer for the device was released on July 30th, 2024, the startup became a subject of memes and discussions, with the founder spending $1.8 million of the initial investment to acquire the Friend.com domain name, spawning jokes and memes. In late September and early October 2025, the company launched a $1 million ad campaign in NYC on the subway system, claiming it was the "largest ever." The ads were frequently targeted and defaced with graffiti in retaliation.

History

Friend is a wearable artificial intelligence device in the form of a pendant that communicates with the wearer via text messages and push notifications, sharing opinions about what is going on around it and "talking" to the user.^[1]

On July 30th, 2024, the founder of the Friend startup Avi Schiffmann (@AviSchiffmann) posted a reveal trailer for the device on X^[2] / Twitter and YouTube^[3] (shown below). On X / Twitter, the trailer garnered over 11.8 million views, 8,100 reposts and 10,000 likes in one day.

Later on July 30th, Avi Schiffmann wrote on X^[4] / Twitter that the startup paid $1.8 million of the initial investment money for the friend.com domain, with the initial investment amount reported to be at $2.5 million.^[5]

Online Reactions

The product became a viral subject of discussions on social media in the hours following the release of the trailer, with the founder's $1.8 million investment to acquire the friend.com domain name becoming a prominent subject of jokes.

On July 30th, 2024, tech YouTuber Marques "MKBHD" Brownlee replied to the trailer, commenting, "Wait this isn't a skit?" The reply, followed by an exchange between Brownlee and Schiffmann, received over 270 reposts and 18,000 likes on X^[6] in one day (shown below).

Various memes mocking the founder of the startup over spending a large portion of the investment on a domain name were circulated on X / Twitter in late July 2024. For example, on July 31st, 2024, X^[7] user @growing_daniel posted an Ouhhh… Husbant… meme that received over 3,300 reposts in one day (shown below, left).

On July 30th, Nik Shevchenko, a founder of a competing AI pin startup also called Friend, posted a diss rap video that accumulated over 645,000 views, 330 reposts and 2,400 likes on X^[8] in one day (shown below). The diss also became a part of the discussions related to the product.

Friend.com NYC Subway Ad Campaign

In late September and early October 2025, Friend AI kicked off a $1 million ad campaign in the New York City subway system, with the company's CEO, Avi Schiffmann, telling Adweek^[9] about the campaign, "This is the world’s first major AI campaign. We beat Open AI and Anthropic and all these other companies to the punch."

On September 25th, Schiffmann tweeted^[10] about the start of the campaign, claiming it was the "Largest NYC subway campaign ever," receiving over 25.4 million views, 3,800 likes, 2,100 retweets and 990 replies in a week.

In the following weeks, the ads on trains and in subway stations were commonly targeted and defaced with graffiti, many of them anti-AI in nature.

On October 2nd, 2025, Redditor Better-Turnip-226 shared several of the graffiti-covered advertisements to the /r/interestingasfuck^[11] subreddit, receiving over 20,000 upvotes and 1,100 comments in two hours.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References