AI Companion

Sam Altman wants you to have a super-competent colleague that knows absolutely everything about your life, that lives in your pocket.

Jun 01, 2025

Three years from now…spring 2028

Massive data centers cover one-third of our planet. To fuel our unquenchable thirst for AI, we continue to burn fossil fuels. Strangely, it’s 86 degrees and sunny in Seattle every day, but I don’t go outside much.

I’m sitting on my sofa, punching at the air. I mostly live in White Lotus, an Augmented Reality (AR) game that combines hedonic travel and survival. Players cavort on yachts and beaches with Saxon, Chloe, and the whole cast of degenerates. At the moment, I’m engaged in mortal combat with Greg/Gary, my only weapon a Louis Vuitton handbag.

Someone from the outside world is trying to get my attention.

Husband: “Celeste, Celeste. Packages are showing up at our door several times a day. How could you possibly be spending so much money?”

I remove my AR glasses and struggle to get my bearings.

Me: “Honey, it’s not my fault. Pani is a shopaholic. Every time I compliment Sandra or Evelyn on their handbags or shoes, Pani auto-sources and purchases the items. My friends have expensive taste.”

Husband: “Who the Hell is Panty?”

Me: “Pani. Like Pammy but with an ‘n.’ My nickname for my AI Companion.”

Husband: “Get rid of Panty.”

Me: “Uhm, she’s stuck on my finger,” I say, twisting the gold ring that hosts my personal AI Companion. “I’m not sure how I signed up for the powershopping feature and have no idea how to disable it.”

Husband: “Stop complimenting your friends.”

Me: “I’ll try, but OpenAI’s next update won’t require me to say anything, I’ll just think it, and the purchase will be triggered.”

Husband: “Get new friends.”

You think I’m joking? Let’s check back in two to three years. OpenAI just bought io, legendary iPhone designer Jony Ive’s start-up for $6.5B and they plan to create a new category of AI-native hardware. The first product will be a sleek, pocket-sized, screen-less AI Companion that integrates seamlessly into users’ lives to process the world in real-time. Basically a second but smarter brain we carry in our pocket or place on a desk. The industry has yet to standardize nomenclature for personal AI agentic devices, so for this post I’m using AI Companion and abbreviating it as AIC. Altman and Ive hope to turn current paradigms on their ear and create a new generation of hardware that can accommodate the unique features of agentic AI. And of course it will “elevate humanity.”

*This is Midjourney’s take on what the Ive Designed AI Companion might look like.*

Big Tech has already developed AI software and autonomous agent systems that can respond to commands, anticipate users' needs and act on their behalf. The trillion-dollar question is determining the right hardware form factor that consumers will embrace. You’ve probably seen Zuck wearing his AI-enabled Ray-Bans. Google is giving smart glasses another try—you may remember the Google “Glasshole” fiasco—with a new project called Android XR.

AICs may eventually replace smartphones, but Altman and Ive have made a point of saying their device will interface with smartphones and PCs, not replace them. I suspect Altman is being cautious after backing the Humane AI Pin touted to “replace smartphones.” It was a huge fail, and as that device proved, there are still some technological obstacles that I outline below.

AI Companions seem poised to become wearable accessories—pendants, belt buckles, watches, in addition to sunglasses. Certainly, luxury brands will get in the game, partnering with The Bros to satisfy the desires of the logo-core crowd. I’m guessing this is all just a stop on the road to implanting nanochips, known as Brain Computer Interface (BCI). I likely won’t opt for an implant, but a device that can adorn my body has its appeal. A lot of my oxygen has been burned hunting for my phone, mostly inside my house. Hopefully, the tech overlords will still give us an option for wearables when the BCIs become prevalent.

Just 20 days before the big $6.5 billion io acquisition announcement, Sam Altman told MIT Technology Review, “What you really want, is just this thing that is off helping you.” Because Sam knows what we all really want. He continued, “[a] super-competent colleague that knows absolutely everything about my whole life, every email, every conversation I’ve ever had, but doesn’t feel like an extension.”

This spy, I mean assistant, will permeate our digital and physical lives. Googles Project Astra will interject when it thinks you need help. Imagine yelling “shut up” all day to your AI Companion hidden in your pocket like you’ve gone mad, kind of like how I yell at Alexa when she interrupts.

So Big Tech believes we will cede control to a personal AI Companion that will know everything about us through access to our computers and devices or directly to the cloud. I think at some point privacy will be so compromised that most of us will just give in to the inevitable. (I was one of those dummies who did Ancestry because I thought it was novel! Oh, the innocence of 2016.) So these second brain AI companions will blend our work-life, if we still have jobs, and personal emails, calendars, photos, web browsing, everything we speak aloud, every prompt we’ve put into ChatGPT or other models, every interaction on social media, every online shopping transaction, our medical records, DNA, and of course all our financial and banking info. The Tech Bros are wagering we will gladly allow our AIC to run our lives, deciding what we need and then doing it for us—doctor appointments, parent/teacher conferences, our social calendars.

AIC: “I saw you got an invite from so and so. I went ahead and RSVPed ‘yes’ and ordered the driverless car to pick you up.”

Me: “I don’t want to go. I don’t like that person at all.”

AIC: “Okay. I just un-RSVPed and told them you have great disdain for them and everything they stand for. By the way, your hip is degenerating according to my biometric sensors and scanner. I scheduled your hip replacement for next Thursday.”

Another benefit, your AI Companion will post day and night on IG and TikTok for you, ensuring you are influencing and staying relevant. Sometimes they hallucinate and post bombastic rhetoric that gets you cancelled and swatted.

The technology for AI-powered devices already exists but still faces hurdles. Humane’s AI Pin was plagued by overheating and abysmal battery life. Also, the nanotech has challenges of scaling, cost and material stabilization. I’m guessing this is why Altman is showing uncharacteristic restraint, these issues need to be addressed before he can gobble up the entire market for hardware and devices.

This is how the AIC devices work:

Continuous Context Awareness: Cameras, microphones, and biometric sensors process surroundings, conversations, and even emotions. So you won’t be just compromising your privacy; anyone and everyone you interact with will be under surveillance by your AI Companion.
Voice & Gesture Interaction: Instead of typing, users will interact with AI through voice commands, eye movements, subtle gestures, and eventually thoughts. Am I the only one with intrusive thoughts? This could be a big problem.
Proactive Assistance: AI agents won’t just respond to queries—they’ll anticipate needs, offer reminders, summarize conversations, and suggest or even take actions. Sounds like what the Tech Bros really want is their Mommy.
Augmented Reality (AR) Integration: Smart glasses will overlay real-time information onto the physical world, helping with navigation, translations, and even social interactions. So the nav and realtime language translation sounds pretty cool. But what exactly is this social feature? Will it help my son talk to girls like a modern Cyrano de Bergerac? Will it bail me out at cocktail parties when I dis on Ozempic then realize everyone’s on it?
Personalized AI Memory: AI will remember your past interactions—meetings, conversations, and will access past emails and texts for instant retrieval. This one might be the freakiest, while at the same time so helpful. I would love my AI Companion to remind me of names and provide vitals like married, divorced, number of kids and why and how I know them. At a recent social event, I was mortified to enthusiastically say “nice to meet you” to someone I have met many times, granted over many years at parties involving alcohol.

I have so many conflicting emotions about this particular “killer app” for agentic AI. Who doesn’t want an extension of their brain? And who wouldn’t want a pocket-sized personal assistant? But at what price? Say goodbye to your privacy while compromising the privacy of everyone around you. And the more gagified and integrated we become with machines, we may see already tenuous human connections slipping further away.

Love it or hate it, Microsoft, Apple, Google and Meta are racing to develop AI Companions imbued with a level of autonomy we won’t completely control. They are betting big that these second brains will not only be essential in daily life, but become part of us in a way that our very existence relies on them. Assisting, providing, and reminding in real-time, determining what we need and even doing or getting it for us. Ka-ching. Ka-ching.

Celeste Garcia Getting Real About AI

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