![\"Friend's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/friend-ceo-photoshoot-ads.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t Avi Schiffmann via X \/ Futurism\n\t<\/p>\n
Last month, AI startup Friend launched an eyebrow-raising advertising campaign in the New York City subway, which drew a striking amount of hatred<\/a>.<\/p>\n The largely white billboards left a convenient amount of room for passersby to air their feelings about the privacy-infringing tech. As such, it didn\u2019t take long for handwritten scribbles to cover the ads<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cBefriend something alive,\u201d one pen-wielding tagger\u00a0wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAI wouldn\u2019t care if you lived or died,\u201d another vandal\u00a0raged<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAI will promote suicide when prompted, it is NOT YOUR \u2018FRIEND,’\u201d reads<\/a> another graffito.<\/p>\n The company recently launched its controversial AI gadget, which is designed to constantly listen to you via a microphone<\/a>\u00a0and send snarky AI texts to your smartphone.<\/p>\n Now, Friend\u2019s 22-year-old CEO Avi Schiffmann isn\u2019t just doing a photoshoot in front of the defaced ads for photos featured in The Atlantic<\/a> \u2014 he\u2019s relishing the attention his company has been getting as of late.<\/p>\n Schiffmann told the magazine that the backlash was part of Friend\u2019s plan. The ads were allegedly meant to provoke a conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe picture of the billboard is the billboard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing is sacred anymore, and everything is ironic,\u201d he added, a cringeworthy missive he\u2018s repeated in several<\/a> other interviews<\/a>.<\/p>\n New York City is rebelling against ads for Friend\u2019s AI pendant. @matteo_wong<\/a> toured the vandalized posters with Friend\u2019s CEO, Avi Schiffmann, who says he\u2019s enjoying the angry reaction. https:\/\/t.co\/BJypbOkf6c<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) October 6, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n The CEO also denied the company was involved in graffitiing the billboards, a theory inspired by mysteriously verbatim phrases found on multiple of the company\u2019s ads.<\/p>\n Last year, Friend sparked a major discussion<\/a> surrounding the use of generative AI to replace human connection after sharing a \u201creveal\u201d video<\/a>, which featured a woman who spoke to a pendant-like device around her neck and asked it for life advice.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is officially the most dystopian advertisement I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d one YouTube commenter wrote. \u201cCongratulations, you absolute sociopaths.\u201d<\/p>\n Since then, tech journalists at a number of<\/a> publications<\/a> have given the device a whirl, finding that it not only leaves a lot to be desired<\/a> from a features standpoint, but willingly antagonizes<\/a> its wearer as well.<\/p>\n That\u2019s besides the dystopian privacy implications<\/a> of a device that\u2019s constantly listening to everything you \u2014 and everybody around you \u2014 happens to say.<\/p>\n Schiffmann told The Atlantic that the pendant wasn\u2019t meant to replace \u201cany relationship in your life.\u201d Instead, it could be a new category \u2014 an amalgamation of your therapist, best friend, and journal.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what I said a while ago, and I don\u2019t think a lot of people liked it, but I would say that the closest relationship this is equivalent to is talking to a god,\u201d he boasted to The Atlantic.<\/p>\n Whether the Friend pendant will ever turn into a meaningful business remains to be seen, especially considering the outpouring of hatred the company\u2019s New York City subway campaign has received. <\/p>\n In other words, it tests the adage that any press is good press. Shiffman, for his part, is sticking with a weird explanation: that it\u2019s actually cheaper for Friend if fewer people use it.<\/p>\n \u201cProfitability is ideal,\u201d Schiffmann told Fortune<\/a> last week, \u201cbut right now it costs me an unfathomable amount of money if you actually use the product.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the 22-year-old is already preparing for the worst. His company\u2019s offering would certainly not be the first generative AI wearable to crash and burn in spectacular fashion.<\/p>\n \u201cI think one day we\u2019ll probably be sued, and we\u2019ll figure it out,\u201d he told Fortune. \u201cIt\u2019ll be really cool to see.\u201d<\/p>\n More on Friend: AI \u201cFriend\u201d Startup Overwhelmed With Hatred<\/a><\/p>\n \t