Wearable AI tech has almost uniformly proved disastrous. A company called Persona is making an AI-focused wristband that it hopes will sidestep this trend. Whether it’ll prove more compelling than the Humane AI pin or anything that Rabbit has done remains to be seen. But plenty of folks are willing to give it a shot.
The company’s wearable at least has 2026’s aesthetic down. It’s a fabric-covered band with minimal visual interaction. Side views of the tech show that it looks an awful lot like a watch face underneath. Customers are going nuts over screen-less tech right now, so hiding the display could be a good call.
Take another Persona
The Persona band is just an interface, either way. The company says that its AI currently also works through iMessage on Apple’s devices. The wearable is simply a way to control the AI, via voice commands or on-wrist taps, without hauling out your phone. As for its capabilities, the band apparently understands 120 languages and receives instructions in all of them.
Persona is quite confident about the tasks its band and AI can take on. The setup “[s]its on hold, argues the fee, and calls back until it’s sorted,” or “[s]ends the invoices, chases late payments, and follows up with clients,” to cite just two of the company’s examples. Those, and others, are easy to claim but fiendishly difficult to execute. Rabbit and Humane made similar claims that their hardware just never managed to pull off.
Perhaps Persona will prove a more positive experience. At least the hardware looks like it’ll last. The fabric band conceals an aluminium chassis with the ring-shaped notification icon on the screen. It’ll last a claimed three days on a charge, and charges via USB-C. The aluminium body is also waterproof, in case you think of a compelling memo while in the shower. Finally, the dual microphones can be muted so it doesn’t broadcast your plans for global supremacy to the wrong folks.
It’ll cost you at least R3,600 to strap a Persona on your wrist. The company reckons that its companion AI, which lives inside the app and integrates with your other stuff, is free of charge. It’ll supposedly remain that way, too. We’ll see if that, and the company, lasts.
