The market of AI companions is getting a new player – the Omi device that will be able to “read” the thoughts of its owner. This was reported by The Verge. However, the device has a clear Russian connection, which the company’s founder is trying to hide.

During the demonstration, the startup’s founder, Nick Shevchenko, wore a device attached to his temple with medical tape. He claims that Omi reads the user’s brain waves and determines the moments when they are addressed. The company uses the OpenAI and Meta models to process requests.

Omi

However, these features are still under development and will be available to users no earlier than in two years. At the moment, Omi is offered to be worn around the neck in the form of a pendant that constantly listens to the user and responds only to direct requests. The built-in battery should last for three days of operation.

Omi is able to summarize meetings or conversations and display their content on your smartphone. It can also provide real-time information – during the demonstration, Shevchenko accidentally asked about the price of bitcoin and received a notification from the Omi app on his smartphone a few seconds later.

Omi

There is also the Omi app store, which developers are already using to integrate audio input features with services such as Zapier and Google Drive.

The founder of the startup, 23-year-old Nick Shevchenko, writes on his website that he was born “in the middle of nowhere on an island in the Pacific Ocean,” and in an interview with Charlie Katz he says it was a village where people earned $300 a month.”

As it turned out, by “the village” he meant Russia, which he left in 2022 after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, out of fear of being mobilized. He told TechCrunch about it (the article has been removed, the information is taken from the archived version).

For now, Shevchenko avoids mentioning his background and says that at the age of 14 he already had 40 video cards for cryptocurrency mining, and at 16 he founded his first company.

Omi will be launched in the second quarter of this year, cost $89 and will compete with AI companions such as Friend and others. The main goal of Omi is to become a large platform for applications rather than a highly specialized device.