In 2022, Rewind had just raised $10 million from a16z to build a personal data recording service that promised to privately record your activities and make your own history searchable. . But that was before OpenAI launched ChatGPT.
Now, generative AI makes what Rewind built earlier — a searchable record of activity — even more useful. So it's not too surprising that the startup would pivot to integrating AI more deeply into its products. The company has rebranded itself as Limitless and offers an AI-powered meeting suite and a hardware pendant that can record conversations.
Dan Siroker, the company's co-founder, first posted the idea. Conversation recording pendant from October last year We have started accepting orders for $59. In January, he posted that the company completed the design We aim to ship the product in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Siroker posted the final design this week, along with news of the company's pivot. The $99 pendant was posted on X earlier this week. The company is accepting pre-orders and aims to ship the first batch in August. Siroker said the company plans to accept initial pre-orders for he $59.Earlier on Wednesday, he posted: The startup has already received over 10,000 pre-orders for the product.
Introducing Limitless: Personalized AI powered by what you see, say, and hear.
This is a web app, a Mac app, a Windows app, and a wearable.
0:06 Reveal
0:48 Why Limitless?
1:39 Demo
3:05 Pendant
4:27 Privacy
5:23 Confidential Cloud
6:36 Rewind
7:12 Roadmap
9:25 Vision pic.twitter.com/zCjIr215Wd
— Dan Siroker (@dsiroker) April 15, 2024
Product features and core
The Limitless pendant can be easily attached to your shirt like a wireless microphone, or tied on a string like a necklace to record your conversations. The main use case is recording and transcribing meetings, so there's no need to take notes. The company says the device is weather-resistant, has a 100-hour battery life, and can be easily charged via a USB-C port.
The hardware also has a “consent mode” that won't record the person on the other end of the conversation unless that person explicitly consents to the recording. It is unclear whether this mode will be turned on by default.
The company is months away from shipping its hardware products, but it has already released an app for recording meetings, available on the Web, Mac, and Windows. The app uses system audio and microphone to record, so there's no need for bots to join these meetings.
The app has features seen in conferencing tools like Otter, Zoom, TimeOS, and TLDV. Shirokar told TechCrunch that the company aims to differentiate itself with tools like real-time automated notes and meeting summaries that are automatically generated based on participants and previous meetings.
The app is free and comes with unlimited audio storage and 10 hours of AI features such as transcription, summarization, and notes per month. Unlimited AI features are $29/month, or $19/month if paid annually.
Image credit: Unlimited
Siroker said one of the key differentiators is the company's new confidential cloud product, which stores data in an encrypted format. Rewind was primarily a local product, but the new cloud will allow users to access their data from anywhere.
Shirokar said the company had Leviathan Security Group conduct a third-party audit of its solution to measure security.
“Confidential Cloud may sound like an oxymoron, but it's not. It's private by design. Unlike traditional clouds, even if given a subpoena, your employer, software, and “We, the provider, and the government cannot decrypt your data without your permission. Only you have control over the decryption of your data,” he told TechCrunch.
The road ahead
Rewind says on its website that it has raised more than $33 million in funding from backers including a16z, First Round Capital, and NEA. The company said it has not used any of the money it received from last year's unusual Series A round. Post a video to X —Therefore, there are no plans to raise new funds.
The company said it will continue to support Rewind as is, but has no plans to actively add new features. This means the company will not ship the Windows apps it promised to develop last year.
“We have no plans to close Rewind or integrate it into Limitless. We plan to reimplement many of our users' favorite rewind features directly into Limitless,” Siroker said.
“Users can also use both products side-by-side and decide which one is better. Over time, we have found that they agree that Limitless' approach is better and that Limitless I hope you will only use this approach.
The company says the hardware product answers questions through an AI-powered bot based on meeting recordings, connections to personal accounts, and information on the web. It also provides a platform for developers to build experiences around apps and products.
But the bigger vision for Limitless is to build AI agents that do work for you. This seems to be a trend among startups working on AI. Hardware startups like Humane and Rabbit are trying to create devices equipped with AI tools that promise to be powerful enough to handle some tasks for users.
Browsers like The Browser Company's Arc and YC-backed Sigma OS also build agents to browse the web. However, the output of AI bots is still error-filled and there are many unknowns because it can be difficult to get the AI to understand the context and intent of the query. The idea of an AI-powered agent doing some work for you certainly sounds like a dream, but we may have to wait a while to get there.