{"id":47291,"date":"2025-09-27T18:50:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T18:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/47291\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T18:50:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T18:50:06","slug":"ai-startup-friend-spent-more-than-1m-on-all-those-subway-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/47291\/","title":{"rendered":"AI startup Friend spent more than $1M on all those subway ads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you\u2019ve been on the New York City subway recently, you\u2019ve probably seen stark white ads promoting a wearable AI device called <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/friend.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Friend<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.adweek.com\/brand-marketing\/ai-startup-friend-bets-on-foes-with-1m-nyc-subway-campaign\/\" target=\"_blank\">CEO Avi Schiffman told Adweek<\/a> that the company spent more than $1 million on a campaign with more than 11,000 cards on subway cars, 1,000 platform posters, and 130 <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.outfront.com\/media\/street-furniture-advertising\/urban-panels\" target=\"_blank\">urban panels<\/a>. Some stations, like West 4th Street, are completely dominated by Friend ads.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis is the world\u2019s first major AI campaign,\u201d Schiffman said. (There have been other AI ads of <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/12\/03\/the-abject-weirdness-of-ai-ads\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">questionable effectiveness<\/a>, but perhaps not a print campaign of this scale.) He described it as \u201ca huge gamble,\u201d adding, \u201cI don\u2019t have much money left.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Friend\u2019s $129 device has been controversial, with Wired writers recently criticizing its constant surveillance and declaring, \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/i-hate-my-ai-friend\/\" target=\"_blank\">I Hate My Friend<\/a>.\u201d Similarly, some Friend ads have been <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/normie_egirl\/status\/1971403538036359285?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1971403538036359285%7Ctwgr%5E882b8f74bf93aa0f4f53590b445a60cf0ccdd1de%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.adweek.com%2Fbrand-marketing%2Fai-startup-friend-bets-on-foes-with-1m-nyc-subway-campaign%2F\">vandalized with messages<\/a> calling it \u201csurveillance capitalism\u201d and urging spectators to \u201cget real friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Schiffman said he\u2019s well aware that \u201cpeople in New York hate AI \u2026 probably more than anywhere else in the country,\u201d so he deliberately bought ads with lots of white space \u201cso that they would socially comment on the topic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019ve been on the New York City subway recently, you\u2019ve probably seen stark white ads promoting a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,34709,27504,61,60,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-47291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-avi-schiffman","12":"tag-friend","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}