Maria de Lourdes Zollo, CEO and Co-Founding father of Bee – Interview Series

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Maria de Lourdes Zollo is the CEO and Co-Founding father of Bee. She previously worked at Twitter as a Senior Product Manager and creator. Maria de Lourdes Zollo attended Università degli Studi di Milano.

Bee is a private AI wearable that transforms conversations and tasks into summaries, insights, and reminders. It learns and adapts, offering proactive assistance while ensuring privacy with a mute function. With advanced noise filtering, support for 40 languages, and a seven-day battery life, Bee is designed for seamless, uninterrupted use. Its modular design allows flexible wear options, and it integrates easily with iOS, providing an intelligent companion that enhances productivity and keeps users present of their day by day lives.

What inspired you and Ethan to co-found Bee, and the way did your prior experiences at TikTok, Squad, and Twitter shape your vision for this personal AI wearable?

The journey to Bee began with an amusing realization – my first prototype was actually focused on makeup! I used to be trying to unravel a private frustration around making informed purchasing decisions without continually having to rebuild context on Google or Amazon. This experience led me to explore a broader query about personalized AI understanding.

When Ethan and I connected, we discovered an enchanting alignment. He had previously explored similar concepts in 2016 with Olabot (before pivoting to Squad), investigating whether AI could retain our memories, interests, insights, and values. While the technology wasn’t ready then, I saw a possibility to revisit and reimagine this idea in a very latest way.

My experience at TikTok had deeply impressed upon me the facility of truly understanding users and delivering personalized experiences. With Ethan, we recognized the potential to create something revolutionary – AI that does not just reply to commands but builds real understanding through continuous presence.

The timing was perfect. The technology had finally caught as much as enable our vision, and our experiences at major tech platforms had shown each the potential and limitations of existing AI approaches. We founded Bee because we consider AI should do greater than just execute commands – it should understand your world, anticipate your needs, and grow alongside you. This vision of technology as a natural extension of your life, constructing deep personal understanding through continuous presence, is now finally possible.

Bee is concentrated on making AI more human-centered and contextually aware. Why is that this such a crucial focus for you, and the way do you see this shaping the longer term of AI technology?

Making AI more human-centered and contextually aware is crucial because we’re at a transformative moment in our relationship with technology. Immediately, we’re continually bombarded with notifications and tasks that fragment our attention and disconnect us from what truly matters in our lives. Technology promised to boost our existence, but as an alternative, it often pulls us away from being present within the moment.

This is the reason we’re moving away from the standard command-based AI model. We consider AI should work in harmony with human attention reasonably than competing for it. By creating AI that builds real understanding through continuous presence, Bee can quietly absorb context and handle mundane tasks while allowing you to remain fully engaged in your life.

When your AI truly understands context, it might probably transform each physical and digital experiences into meaningful insights without demanding your constant attention. It knows when to step in and when to remain quiet. This mindful approach represents the longer term of AI – technology that does not just reply to requests but actually helps you be more present by understanding the natural rhythm of your life. It’s about creating technology that respects our humanity while making our lives simpler, more connected, and more intentional.

Constructing a hardware product like Bee in only 10 months is not any small feat. What were a few of the biggest challenges, and the way did you overcome them?

Constructing Bee in only 10 months was a journey that required rethinking traditional hardware development. The largest challenge wasn’t just technical, but strategic: making the fitting decisions at the fitting time. Unlike software where you’ll be able to quickly iterate and reverse course, hardware development is way less forgiving. A single improper decision can cost months of time and significant resources.

To beat this, we took a deliberately iterative approach. As a substitute of aiming for perfection from the beginning, we began with a straightforward hardware design that we could prototype quickly. We built a powerful community of early users here in San Francisco who provided invaluable feedback. This close relationship with our users allowed us to learn and adapt rapidly. Over the course of a 12 months, we went through 4 different device iterations – they weren’t pretty, but each version taught us crucial lessons about what users truly needed and wanted.

This rapid prototyping and shut user feedback loop was key to our success. While the early prototypes may not have looked beautiful, they helped us avoid the classic hardware trap of spending an excessive amount of time perfecting something users may not actually want. By staying near our users and maintaining a fast iteration cycle, we were in a position to create a product that genuinely serves user needs reasonably than simply our assumptions.

How did you approach integrating AI with hardware while keeping it user-friendly and inexpensive?

Our approach to integrating AI with hardware centered on intentional simplicity. We focused on making a clean, minimal design using fastidiously chosen materials that allow us to maintain costs down while maintaining quality. But the true magic of Bee is not in complex hardware – it’s within the software experience.

We have made Bee accessible through our Pioneer Edition at $49.99 (regular MSRP $99.99), with a $12 monthly subscription that unlocks advanced capabilities. This pricing structure reflects our belief that powerful personal AI must be accessible to everyone.

What makes Bee special is how the AI learns and adapts to you over time. The hardware provides the continual presence needed for this understanding to develop, while the software transforms your day by day experiences into meaningful insights and actions. This deal with software-driven value, combined with easy hardware design, allows us to deliver an impactful AI experience at an accessible price point.

What sets Bee aside from other AI wearables which have struggled to achieve traction previously?

Our approach stands apart because we consider the longer term of non-public AI is not about creating one other standalone device – it’s about constructing continuous understanding of your world. As a substitute of focusing totally on hardware capabilities, we’re taking a software-first approach where the device serves as your AI’s connection to your day by day life.

What makes Bee different is how we’re constructing it – fast iteration directly with our community, learning and adapting based on real user experiences. The Bee device itself is intentionally easy, serving as your AI’s ears, while our software creates a seamless connection between your digital and private life. Our seven-day battery life enables this continuous presence, transforming each online interactions and real-world conversations into meaningful insights.

We see personal AI as a bridge between your digital footprint and physical world, not only one other gadget.

The modular design of Bee is intriguing. What inspired this flexibility, and the way do you see users benefiting from it?

The modular design reflects our understanding that private technology should adapt to every user’s unique lifestyle. Our approach is easy – provide a core device while letting users customize how they wear and use Bee through different accessories based on their individual needs.

What’s fascinating is how our community has embraced this flexibility. We’re actually seeing users request much more accessories and ways to adapt Bee to their day by day lives.

Privacy is a serious concern with devices that repeatedly listen and process data. How does Bee address these concerns while maintaining its functionality?

Privacy is key to how we have designed Bee from the bottom up. We follow a straightforward principle: your personal moments stay personal. All conversations are processed in real-time and immediately deleted – we never store audio recordings. Users have complete control over their data, with the flexibility to delete anything at any time.

We maintain the best security standards because we consider trust is crucial for private AI. We never use your data for AI training, never sell it, and never share it with third parties.

Bee combines AI and wearables in a novel way. Are you able to share insights into the event process and the way you balanced innovation with practicality?

Developing Bee meant reimagining how AI and hardware could work together. We focused on creating seamless integration between physical and digital experiences, connecting with email, calendar, and other services while learning from real-world interactions. Our beta testing of automated agents for tasks like sending emails and WhatsApp messages shows how we’re pushing the boundaries of non-public AI capabilities.

How do you envision Bee enhancing people’s day by day lives in ways in which existing technologies haven’t?

Bee helps people stay present by understanding their world and handling tasks within the background. It captures key moments, reminds users of commitments, and reduces distractions, allowing them to deal with what truly matters.

How do you see AI wearables evolving over the following five years, and what role do you envision Bee playing on this ecosystem?

The longer term of AI wearables lies in creating AI that really understands context and integrates seamlessly into day by day life. Bee is leading this shift by specializing in continuous learning and adaptation reasonably than simply adding more features.

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