Maria de Lourdes Zollo is the CEO and co-founder of Bee. She previously worked as a senior product manager and creator on Twitter. Maria de Lourdes Zollo attended the University of Milano (Università Degli Studiodi di Milano).
Bee is wearable for personal AI, turning conversations and tasks into summary, insights and reminders. It learns and adapts, provides proactive help while ensuring privacy with silent features. With advanced noise filtering, support for 40 languages, and 7 days of battery life, Bee is designed for seamless, uninterrupted use. Its modular design allows for flexible wear options and integrates smoothly with iOS, providing a clever companion that increases productivity and enables users to be present in everyday life.
What inspired you and Ethan to co-create the Bee, how did your experiences before Tiktok, Squad, and Twitter shape your vision for this personal AI wearable?
The Bee’s journey started with an interesting understanding – my first prototype was actually focusing on makeup! I’m trying to address personal frustrations with an informed purchase decision without having to rebuild the background on Google or Amazon. This experience led me to explore a broader question about personalized AI understanding.
When I connected with Ethan, we found a fascinating alignment. He had previously explored similar concepts with Olabot (before being connected to the squad) in 2016 and looked at whether AI can preserve our memories, interests, insights, and values. While the technology wasn’t ready at the time, I saw the opportunity to revisit and reimagine the concept in a completely new way.
I was impressed by my experience at Tiktok, the power to really understand the user and provide a personalized experience. With Ethan, we recognize the possibility of creating something revolutionary – AI not only responds to commands, but also builds a real understanding through constant existence.
The timing is perfect. The technology has finally caught up with our vision, and our experience on major technology platforms both demonstrates the potential and limitations of existing AI approaches. We created bees because we think AI is not only about executing commands—it should understand your world, predict your needs and grow with you. Now, the vision of this technology is a natural extension of your life, building a deep personal understanding through continuous existence, which is now finally possible.
Bee focuses on making AI people-centered and context-aware. Why is this such an important point for you and how do you view the future of AI technology?
Making AI people-centered and context-aware is crucial because we are in a moment of change in our relationship with technology. Currently, we are constantly bombarded by notifications and tasks that distract us from and disconnect us from what really matters in life. Technology promises enhance our existence, but instead, it often frees us from the present.
This is why we should stay away from traditional command-based AI models. We believe that AI should live in harmony with human concerns, rather than fighting for it. By creating AI that builds true understanding through continuous existence, bees can quietly absorb context and handle mundane tasks while enabling you to fully participate in life.
When your AI truly understands the context, it can transform physical and digital experiences into meaningful insights without constant attention. It knows when to step in and when to stay quiet. This mindful approach represents the future of AI – technology not only responds to requests, but also helps you appear more by understanding the natural rhythm of life. It’s about creating technology that respects our human nature while making our lives simpler, closer, and more intentional.
Building hardware products like Bee in just 10 months is no small matter. What are the biggest challenges? How did you overcome them?
Building bees in just 10 months is a journey that requires rethinking traditional hardware development. The biggest challenge is not only technical, but also strategic: make the right decision at the right time. Unlike software where you can iterate and reverse the process quickly, there is much less hardware development. A wrong decision can take months and a lot of resources.
To overcome this, we took a deliberate iterative approach. Instead of aiming at perfection from the beginning, we start with a simple hardware design where we can quickly prototype. We have built a strong early user community in San Francisco and they provide valuable feedback. This close relationship with users allows us to learn and adapt quickly. Over the course of the year, we did four different iterations of the device – they weren’t pretty, but each version taught us important lessons about what users really need and want.
This fast prototype and close user feedback loop is key to our success. While early prototypes may not look pretty, they help us avoid the classic hardware trap of spending too much time perfecting what users may not actually want. By maintaining close relationships with users and maintaining fast iteration cycles, we are able to create a product that truly meets the needs of users, not just our assumptions.
How do you integrate AI with hardware while keeping it user-friendly and affordable?
We integrate AI with hardware into a central approach to intentional simplicity. We focus on creating clean, minimal designs using carefully selected materials that allow us to maintain cost while maintaining quality. But the true magic of bees is not complex hardware, but software experience.
We access Bee through the pioneer version for $49.99 (regular retail price $99.99), with a monthly subscription of $12 to unlock premium features. This pricing structure reflects our belief that everyone should access powerful personal AI.
What makes Bee unique is how AI learns and adapts to you over time. The hardware provides the ongoing existence required for this understanding, while the software transforms your everyday experience into meaningful insights and actions. This focus on the value of software-driven, coupled with simple hardware design, allows us to deliver an impactful AI experience at an accessible price point.
What’s different from other AI wearables that have struggled to gain traction in the past?
Our approach is separated because we believe that the future of personal AI is not about creating another standalone device, but about building an ongoing understanding of your world. Instead of focusing primarily on hardware capabilities, we take a software-first approach that serves as your AI connection to your everyday life.
What makes Bee unique is how we build it – iterate directly with our community quickly, learning and adapting based on real user experience. The Bee device itself is simple and can be used as your AI ear, and our software creates a seamless connection between your digital and personal life. Our seven-day battery life enables this continuous presence, transforming online interaction and real-world conversations into meaningful insights.
We see personal AI as a bridge between your digital footprint and the physical world, not just another gadget.
The modular design of the bees is fun. What inspired this flexibility and how do you see users benefit from it?
Modular design reflects our understanding that individual technology should adapt to each user’s unique lifestyle. Our approach is simple – providing core equipment while allowing users to customize how they wear and use bees with different accessories according to their personal needs.
What’s fascinating is how our community embraces this flexibility. In fact, we see users asking for more accessories and ways to adapt to the daily life of bees.
Privacy is the main problem for devices that constantly listen and process data. How do bees solve these problems while maintaining their functionality?
Privacy is the foundation for how we design bees from scratch. We follow a simple principle: your personal moments are always personal. All conversations can be processed in real time and deleted immediately – we never store recordings. Users have full control over their data and are able to delete anything at any time.
We maintain the highest standards of security because we believe trust is crucial to personal AI. We never use your data for AI training, never sell it, and never share it with third parties.
Bees combine AI and wearable devices in a unique way. Can you share your insights into the development process and how to balance innovation with practicality?
Developing a bee means reimagining how AI and hardware work together. We focus on creating seamless integration between physical and digital experiences and connecting with email, calendar and other services while learning from real-world interactions. Our automated proxy tests for tasks like sending emails and WhatsApp messages show how we can push the boundaries of personal AI capabilities.
How do you imagine bees that enhance people’s daily lives in ways that are not available in the prior art?
Bees help people stay present by understanding their world and handling tasks in the background. It captures critical moments, reminds users of commitment and reduces distractions so they can focus on what really matters.
How do you think of AI wearables developing in the next five years, and do you envision playing the role of bees in this ecosystem?
The future of AI wearables lies in creating AI that truly understands the context and integrates seamlessly into everyday life. Bee leads this transformation by focusing on continuous learning and adaptation rather than just adding more features.
Thank you for your excellent interview, and readers who hope to learn more should visit Bee.
