AI Companion Startup Friend Calls Defaced Subway Ads ‘Entertaining’

As the saying goes, “All publicity is good publicity.”

Friend CEO Avi Schiffman said the response to his company’s seven-figure ad buy for the New York City subway has been “entertaining” during Thursday’s episode of Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger’s “Access” podcast.

Friend is an AI companion in the form of a pendant necklace. The pendant listens to conversations unprompted and can respond through a related app on the user’s phone.

Last month, Schiffman told AdWeek that Friend spent more than $1 million on the print ad campaign, which included over 11,000 subway car ads, over 1,000 platform posters, and 130 urban panels.

New Yorkers skeptical of AI promptly defaced many of those ads with anti-AI graffiti. Defaced Friend ads photographed by Business Insider included phrases like “Human connection is sacred,” “AI is not your friend,” “AI wouldn’t care if you lived or died,” and “surveillance tool.”

“I think a lot of people think it’s an excruciatingly large amount of money to spend, but I actually think it’s really quite cheap,” Schiffman said in the interview. “To buy the entirety of New York’s subway for a million dollars doesn’t really feel like that expensive, especially for the amount of external publicity from it, which has been quite entertaining.”

Although some people may be hesitant to embrace AI companions, Schiffman believes that sentiment will change in the future as the technology improves and the culture adapts.

“There’s going to be one company that comes to your mind, ideally,” Schiffman said. “All roads lead back to Friend.com.”

In an email to Business Insider, Schiffman said the company has seen a “large uptick in sales & traffic” since the campaign’s launch.

As AI technology evolves, AI companions — sold as friends, coworkers, or romantic partners — have become more commonplace.

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Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization, surveyed over 1,000 teenagers about their relationship with AI companions. While more than a quarter of respondents said they had never used an AI companion, 52% said they had at least a few times a month.

An overreliance on AI for friendship and advice can sometimes have serious consequences. In one case, parents sued OpenAI for the wrongful death of their 16-year-old son, who died by suicide after they said he used ChatGPT to explore suicide methods. OpenAI said in August it would introduce new safeguards for “sensitive situations.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said at a conference in July that young people “rely on ChatGPT too much” and said doing so feels “dangerous.”

“Even if ChatGPT gives great advice, even if ChatGPT gives way better advice than any human therapist, something about collectively deciding we’re going to live our lives the way AI tells us feels bad and dangerous,” Altman said.

Despite the backlash, Schiffman said Friend’s ad campaign is going well during his interview on the “Access” podcast.

“It’s a huge success so far, so I’m happy,” he said.