The 22-Year-Old Founder of Viral A.I. Startup Friend Embraces the Backlash

If you’ve taken a New York City subway recently, you’ve likely seen an advertisement for Friend, a San Francisco-based startup selling A.I. companionship in the form of a $129 wearable pendant. The campaign has sparked mixed reactions, to say the least. Many of the minimalistic posters, which liken the A.I. device to a friend or roommate, have been quickly defaced with messages like “A.I. is not your friend,” “Stop profiting off of loneliness,” and “This is surveillance.”

Avi Schiffmann, the 22-year-old founder and CEO of Friend, has taken the graffiti-filled backlash in stride—because that was part of the plan all along. “I knew people would overreact and therefore graffiti these ads, black them out and write that A.I. is evil,” he told Observer. “It’s definitely cool to just see the public commentary.”

Designed by Schiffmann himself in Figma, the posters feature large blank spaces and statements such as “I’ll never bail on our dinner plans” or “I’ll never leave dirty dishes in the sink.” They began appearing across New York City’s five boroughs in August. The entrepreneur said he’s spent $1 million on the campaign thus far.

He’s also taken some of the criticism to heart. “I’ve actually learned some interesting stuff,” said Schiffmann, who noted that graffiti on the posters introduced him to how certain communities are being affected by the water usage of A.I. data centers. Still, the feedback hasn’t strayed him away from the goal of promoting A.I.-based relationships through Friend’s plastic pendant, which contains a microphone to listen to a user’s day-to-day activities and offers commentary over text via a connected chatbot powered by Google’s Gemini models.

Unlike the more conventional ad campaigns of A.I. giants like OpenAI and Anthropic, Schiffmann credits Friend’s strategy—and the controversy it generated—to his young age. “I think that traditional marketing is kind of over for new brands,” said Schiffmann, who described his rivals’ advertisements as being stuck in the past decade. Those same rivals may soon be entering his space: OpenAI, for example, is reportedly working on an A.I. hardware device alongside former Apple designer Jony Ive. “I wish them the best of luck,” Schiffmann said.

According to the CEO, Friend’s campaign has done more than spark debates. It’s also driven a spike in web traffic and sales. The company has sold around 3,000 devices so far. Friend currently employs three full-time staff and has raised just over $7 million. It unveiled its pendant last year alongside a dystopian-style promotional video showing people chatting with their necklaces as if they were close friends.

Who is Avi Schiffmann?

This isn’t Schiffmann’s first time making a digital splash. In 2020, the then-17-year-old created a Covid-19 tracking website that quickly gained popularity and earned praise from Anthony Fauci. Two years later, he dropped out of Harvard to launch a platform that matched Ukrainian refugees with hosts.

The leap from humanitarian websites to a consumer-facing A.I. product might seem dramatic, but Schiffmann doesn’t see it that way. “I can imagine things like the loneliness epidemic as an extension of the digital humanitarian stuff I was doing before,” said the entrepreneur, who described Friend as “a product I built for myself to use.”

Schiffmann likens Friend to a confidante, one that doesn’t replace real relationships but adds a new form of companionship through hardware. “For example, all of my roommates are terrified of motorcycles, but it’s one of my favorite things in the world,” said Schiffmann, who is “able to wear my Friend, talk to it about where we might want to ride and go places.” His current device is nicknamed Essentia, after the brand of water bottle that happened to be sitting in front of him when he activated the device.

The young founder has ambitious plans for what’s next. His upcoming project will be a “feature film,” he said, revealing only that it’s titled Making Friends and is slated to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next year. Schiffmann predicts it will go down in history as “the most influential thingy of 2025 to 2035.”

For now, Friend’s controversial ad campaign remains in the spotlight. The company plans to expand to Chicago’s subway system and has already spent $500,000 on billboards in Los Angeles. Friend’s posters have also begun popping up on hundreds of L.A. bus shelters—placements Schiffmann hopes will inspire the same kind of public engagement as in New York.

“The bus shelters are kind of equivalent to the platform ads in New York, where they’re so easy to deface,” said Schiffmann. “I’ll be excited to see what happens.”