Overview
- Outfront says Friend’s buy is the subway’s biggest this year, with roughly 11,000 placements in New York and additional ads on more than 500 Los Angeles bus shelters.
- Subway posters have been widely defaced with messages criticizing surveillance and profiteering on loneliness, which the CEO describes as validating the campaign’s design.
- Schiffmann told Fortune he spent about $1 million despite limited cash and says the goal is a cultural moment rather than near‑term profitability.
- The $129 neck‑worn device uses Google’s Gemini to respond and store “memories,” with about 3,000 units sold and 1,000 shipped, and he says he toned down the AI after negative Wired reviews.
- Friend’s terms include mandatory arbitration and broad biometric data consent, raising privacy concerns, while the CEO says the company is not currently training models on user data and touts on‑device encryption as a safeguard.