Meet the former Apple designer who built a new AI interface in Hark

A secret artificial intelligence lab founded by serial entrepreneur Brett Adcock has shared new details about what it believes is a new marriage between model building and hardware design that will change how humans interact with intelligent software.

The company said in a statement that it will design comprehensive multimedia models, devices and interfaces side by side to deliver a “seamless, comprehensive personal intelligence product.” The system will have a permanent memory of your life and can listen, see and interact with the world in real time.

How this will be implemented remains unclear outside the company, but Hark’s ambition represents Silicon Valley’s ongoing quest for the killer app that will make AI a desirable consumer product, not features suspiciously hidden in existing digital platforms.

“My point is simple: current AI models are not smart enough, they look downright stupid, and the hardware we use to access them is essentially pre-AI,” Adcock wrote in an internal January memo shared with TechCrunch. “We’re heading toward a world that looks more like science fiction characters, Jarvis or her, with systems that anticipate, adapt to, and truly care about the people who use them.”

Details are intentionally sparse, but Hark points to design director Abidur Chowdhury as a key employee. London-born Choudhury, who was previously an industrial designer at Apple and is credited with leading the design team behind the iPhone Air and other recent models, left last fall after meeting Adcock and becoming convinced by his vision to modernize the way humans automate their lives.

In an exclusive interview with TechCrunch, Chowdhury declined repeated calls to explain Hark’s roadmap, saying only that the public can expect the first release of the company’s AI models this summer. When asked about the different approaches to working and living alongside AI, the designer offered some clues.

“What was very clear to me at the time was that the world was clearly changing, but we were using the same devices… Everything was designed around these existing platforms,” Chowdhury said. “Very few people are really after what the future is. There’s a lot more we could do if intelligence was at the base layer of everything we touch instead of it becoming an app or a website at that top layer.”

Chaudhary points out the difficulty of everyday tasks like filling out forms, sharing information between devices, or mundane tasks like booking travel or planning a home renovation.

“Those whole evenings I have to plan… worrying about, you know, spending my work day thinking about this in the back of my head, ‘Oh, I have to do this,’” Choudhury said. “We honestly believe that all the little tasks that add up to kind of giant things today can kind of automate our lives.”

Choudhary says the company knows what it’s building, but it can’t yet say how users will experience it. His comments suggest that wearables, such as Meta glasses, seem unlikely.

“I’m not a big believer in a lot of the wearable AI platforms that people are talking about now,” Chowdhury said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to put a layer between humanity and the interfaces we use in the world. I feel uncomfortable with pins, or that kind of thing going around cameras.”

When generative AI first came on the scene, Chaudhry initially saw it as just a flash in the pan, but successive generations of models convinced him that it would transform his business. The word “Hark” means “to pay attention,” which Chaudhry says provides a thoughtful framework for the company’s mission.

“Traditional user experience is always about finding the simplest thing for everyone,” he told TechCrunch. “The future user experience will be about finding the right thing for each individual. I believe that can happen. But it takes a lot of work.”

The focus on elegance and simplicity for users reflects the high points of Apple’s product design, and naturally brings to mind Jony Ive, the legendary former Apple designer who now develops native AI hardware at OpenAI. A comparison Hark’s spokesman declined to explore.

Another similarity that comes to mind is how Elon Musk’s xAI is working on advanced models with Tesla’s work on self-driving vehicles and humanoid robots.

There is a similar corporate synergy between Adcock’s humanoid robotics company Shape and New AI Labs. HARK models are already being trained on FIGER robots, although it is not clear to what extent. A person familiar with the two companies’ plans says there are no plans to merge them.

Hark employs 45 engineers and designers, including former Meta AI researchers and designers from Apple and Tesla, all of whom work on the same campus that hosts Adcock’s other companies. Hark expects to start using a new batch of thousands of NVIDIA GPUs in April.

Now, Hark, backed by $100 million in personal funds from Adcock, will join the scramble for talent as the world’s biggest companies try to figure out what will bring deep learning models into everyday life — and at a time when frustration with current models of digital life reaches fever pitch.

“It feels like there’s a chance for the best, and I haven’t felt that way since the iPhone,” Choudhury said.