Friend CEO says it's been 'quite entertaining' after his AI companion startup spent $1 million on subway ads that were immediately defaced

""All publicity is good publicity.""

""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.""

"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.""

Friend is an AI companion pendant that listens to conversations unprompted and can respond through a related phone app. The company invested more than $1 million in a New York City subway campaign, including over 11,000 subway car ads, more than 1,000 platform posters, and 130 urban panels. Many of the subway ads were defaced with anti-AI graffiti, including messages such as "Human connection is sacred" and "AI is not your friend." The company characterized the public reaction as entertaining, framed the ad buy as cost-effective for full-subway exposure, and reported a large uptick in sales while expecting cultural acceptance to grow as the technology improves.

Read at Business Insider