Amazon.com Inc. has agreed to buy Bee, a San-Francisco startup that makes a $50 artificial-intelligence bracelet designed to continuously record conversations, transcribe them and generate daily summaries, reminders and to-do lists. The companies disclosed the deal on 22 July after Bee co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Maria de Lourdes Zollo announced the agreement on LinkedIn. Amazon confirmed the acquisition but did not reveal financial terms, saying the transaction has yet to close. Bee, founded in 2022 and backed by about $7 million in seed funding, sells its screen-less wristband and an accompanying app with an optional $19-a-month subscription. All Bee employees have been offered roles at Amazon, and the startup will join the retailer’s devices unit led by former Microsoft product chief Panos Panay. A spokesperson for Amazon said the company will work with Bee to give users greater control over recording and transcription features—a sensitive issue for a product that captures ambient audio. Bee’s current policy allows users to mute the device and delete stored data; it says raw audio is neither saved nor used to train AI models. The purchase deepens Amazon’s push into hardware that embeds generative AI, following earlier experiments such as the Halo fitness band, which was discontinued in 2023, and Echo smart glasses. Rivals including Meta, OpenAI and Apple are also exploring wearables as the next battleground for always-on, personalized artificial intelligence.