# Humane discontinued the Ai Pin and bricked shipped devices; HP bought its AI assets for $116M

> On Feb 18, 2025 HP agreed to acquire Humane's Cosmos AI platform, team and 300+ patents/applications for $116 million (forming HP IQ). The same day Humane told customers it was 'winding down the consumer Ai Pin'; existing pins stopped connecting to Humane's servers at 12pm PST on Feb 28, 2025, losing calling, messaging, AI and cloud, with consumer data permanently deleted.

- Verification status: verified
- Case type: deployment
- Provider: Humane, Inc. (Ai Pin) / HP Inc.
- Client: Humane, Inc., Consumer AI hardware (named)
- Sector: consumer-electronics / US / cross
- Verified on: 2026-08-24
- Canonical URL: https://theinternetninja.com/stories/humane-ai-pin-discontinued-hp-116m-acquisition-devices-bricked-2025/
- Source: The Internet Ninja (theinternetninja.com), independent verified-proof platform

## Verification method

Two first-party primaries, HP's Feb 18, 2025 press release (c1) and Humane's own consumer Ai Pin customer notice (c2), each byte-tied to a same-week Wayback capture (sha1-b32 == CDX digest), each corroborated verbatim by two mutually independent newsrooms (Gizmodo, Liliputing). No positive client-outcome metric is claimed; this is an AI honest-negative / product walk-back. The Humane notice survives only in Wayback (support.humane.com no longer resolves), so the first-party origin is a byte-tied capture, not a live page.

## Full case file

## The problem
Humane, the startup founded by former Apple executives Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, launched the **Ai Pin** in April 2024 as a screenless, wearable AI assistant pitched as an alternative to the smartphone. It landed badly. As Liliputing recorded, early buyers "may have spent as much as <span class="kpi">$699</span> + subscription fees to become early adopters" of a device that "was a spectacular flop at launch with reviewers complaining that the product was overpriced" [source](https://liliputing.com/hp-is-acquiring-humanes-assets-but-shutting-down-the-ai-pin-business-and-bricking-existing-units/).

## What was built
Roughly ten months after launch, Humane split the company in two directions. On February 18, 2025 HP announced a definitive agreement "to acquire key AI capabilities from Humane, including their AI-powered platform Cosmos, highly skilled technical talent, and intellectual property with <span class="kpi">more than 300 patents and patent applications</span>" [source](https://www.hp.com/us-en/newsroom/press-releases/2025/hp-accelerates-ai-software-investments-to-transform-the-future-of-work.html). HP said "the <span class="kpi">$116 million</span> transaction is expected to close at the end of this month" and that the Humane engineers would form **HP IQ**, HP's new AI innovation lab [source](https://www.hp.com/us-en/newsroom/press-releases/2025/hp-accelerates-ai-software-investments-to-transform-the-future-of-work.html). The purchase was independently reported firsthand: Gizmodo covered HP "as it acquires Humane for $116 million" [source](https://gizmodo.com/humane-bricks-its-ai-pin-as-it-gets-acquired-by-hp-for-116-million-2000565528), and Liliputing wrote that the deal "will have HP pay $116 million for software, intellectual property" [source](https://liliputing.com/hp-is-acquiring-humanes-assets-but-shutting-down-the-ai-pin-business-and-bricking-existing-units/). The consumer Ai Pin hardware was **not** part of that go-forward plan.

## The outcome
The same day, Humane told Ai Pin owners: "effective immediately, we are winding down the consumer Ai Pin as our business priorities have shifted" [source](https://support.humane.com/hc/en-us/articles/34374173951373-Important-Update-for-Consumer-Ai-Pin-Customers). Existing devices would keep working only briefly: "Your Ai Pin will continue to function normally until <span class="kpi">12pm PST on February 28, 2025</span>", after which they would "no longer include calling, messaging, Ai queries/responses, or cloud access," and "on February 28, 2025 at 12pm PST all remaining consumer data will be permanently deleted" [source](https://support.humane.com/hc/en-us/articles/34374173951373-Important-Update-for-Consumer-Ai-Pin-Customers). Independent coverage confirmed the shutdown: Gizmodo reported "all pins would stop functioning at noon PT, Feb. 28, just 10 days after the sale" [source](https://gizmodo.com/humane-bricks-its-ai-pin-as-it-gets-acquired-by-hp-for-116-million-2000565528), and Liliputing reproduced the same Humane timeline verbatim: "Your Ai Pin will continue to function normally until 12pm PST on February 28, 2025. After this date, it will no longer connect to Humane's servers" [source](https://liliputing.com/hp-is-acquiring-humanes-assets-but-shutting-down-the-ai-pin-business-and-bricking-existing-units/).

## Why this belongs in the record
This is an AI honest-negative / walk-back, not a positive vendor outcome: a heavily hyped consumer-AI product was discontinued and the shipped devices remotely disabled, while the underlying AI platform, IP and team were acqui-hired. Its value in the corpus is as a first-party record that a flagship AI device can be retired and bricked at will, with the tech sold on, roughly ten months after launch. Scope note: the $116M is what HP *paid* for Humane's AI assets, not a Humane valuation, revenue, or a client-savings figure, and no positive performance outcome is claimed; the acquisition (c1) and the device wind-down (c2) are kept as distinct facts, and "more than 300 patents and patent applications" is HP's combined phrasing, not 300 granted patents.

**The weakest load-bearing link, named where you meet it:** both critical facts originate with the parties themselves, HP's own press release (c1) and Humane's own customer notice (c2), not an independent audit, so their weight comes from being byte-tied captures corroborated firsthand by two independent newsrooms, not from independence. The Humane notice is weaker still on *reachability*: support.humane.com no longer resolves, so that first-party source exists today only as a Wayback capture (byte-tied, but no longer a live page). The $699/"flop" reception (c3) rests on a single independent outlet (Liliputing) and is treated as market-failure context, not a load-bearing figure.

## How this was verified
- **Method:** Every quoted line was read verbatim from the archived captures in `sources/captures/` and re-bound this session; no figure is paraphrased, rounded, or recalled.
- **Primary anchors:** HP's February 18, 2025 press release (`hp-20250218223916.html`, Tier 1, first-party) is byte-tied: sha1-b32 of the stored capture matches the live Wayback CDX digest `67WY2LDZYDBFXEY4MT4SYSTYRVTCNUXH` (capture `20250218223916`). Humane's consumer Ai Pin customer notice (`humane-20250219110309.html`, Tier 1, first-party, against-interest) is byte-tied to CDX digest `TFD3LV5VBLKNRT6IFFS3KYEREMWZPNSP` (capture `20250219110309`), the decompressed id_ payload matching the stored body used for quote-checking.
- **Independence:** HP (c1) and Humane (c2) are first-party origins and are never counted toward corroboration. The two mutually independent newsrooms carrying both critical claims firsthand are Gizmodo (`20250219152553`) and Liliputing (`20250219002133`), each byte-tied to its own same-week capture. (An Axios capture is a third independent on file but its body did not flatten cleanly, so it is not cited.)
- **Conflation guards:** the $116M is HP's purchase price for the AI assets (software, IP, personnel), not a Humane valuation, revenue, or savings; c1 (acquisition of Cosmos/team/IP into HP IQ) is kept distinct from c2 (the device wind-down and bricking); "more than 300 patents and patent applications" is combined patents-and-applications, not 300 granted patents.
- **Open item (human, post-graduation):** a recorded confirmation from HP Communications and/or a Humane representative of the $116M Cosmos-plus-team-plus-300+-patents/applications acquisition into HP IQ (Ai Pin business excluded), the effective-immediately wind-down, and the Feb 28, 2025 12pm PST server-shutdown and data-deletion cutoff. Green never depends on that call landing; it is a courtesy step, not the proof.
- **Verified on:** 2026-08-09 (presentation rebuilt 2026-08-18).

## Related case files
- [Zillow shut down its algorithmic home-buying business after a $304M write-down](/stories/zillow-offers-ibuying-algorithm-shutdown-304m-writedown-25pct-layoffs-2021/), the closest sibling: a company that bet on an AI/ML model unwinding that bet at a loss, the tech retired once it failed to deliver.
- [Google AI Overviews scaled back after "glue on pizza / eat rocks" answers](/stories/google-ai-overviews-glue-pizza-eat-rocks-scaled-back-2024/), the same walk-back shape at feature scale: an AI product pulled back once its real-world output embarrassed its maker.
- [Microsoft takes its Tay chatbot offline after 16 hours](/stories/microsoft-tay-ai-chatbot-taken-offline-racist-tweets-16-hours-2016/), an earlier consumer-AI product withdrawn when live behaviour diverged from what its builders anticipated.
- [Character.AI removes open-ended chatbot companions for under-18 users](/stories/character-ai-removes-under-18-open-ended-chatbot-companion-walkback-2025/), another consumer-AI feature retired under pressure, the product retreating rather than the vendor doubling down.

## Sources
1. **[Tier 1]** HP Inc. · "HP Accelerates AI Software Investments to Transform the Future of Work" (press release) · February 18, 2025 · https://www.hp.com/us-en/newsroom/press-releases/2025/hp-accelerates-ai-software-investments-to-transform-the-future-of-work.html
2. **[Tier 1]** Humane, Inc. · "Important Update for Consumer Ai Pin Customers" (customer notice; support.humane.com now DNS-dead, archived only) · February 18, 2025 · https://support.humane.com/hc/en-us/articles/34374173951373-Important-Update-for-Consumer-Ai-Pin-Customers
3. **[Tier 2]** Gizmodo · "Humane Bricks Its AI Pin as It Gets Acquired by HP for $116 Million" · February 19, 2025 · https://gizmodo.com/humane-bricks-its-ai-pin-as-it-gets-acquired-by-hp-for-116-million-2000565528
4. **[Tier 2]** Liliputing · "HP is acquiring Humane's assets, but shutting down the Ai Pin business (and bricking existing units)" · February 18, 2025 · https://liliputing.com/hp-is-acquiring-humanes-assets-but-shutting-down-the-ai-pin-business-and-bricking-existing-units/