March 24, 2026 — Hark, a secretive artificial intelligence lab founded by entrepreneur Brett Adcock, has revealed a key hire in its quest to build what it calls a “seamless end-to-end personal intelligence product.” The company has brought on former Apple industrial designer Abidur Chowdhury to lead its design efforts, signaling a focus on hardware and interface integration that aims to move beyond current AI applications.
From iPhone to AI
Chowdhury, who led the design team behind recent iPhone models at Apple, left the tech giant last fall. He joined Hark after meeting with founder Brett Adcock and aligning with his vision for fundamentally changing human-computer interaction. In an exclusive interview with TechCrunch, Chowdhury emphasized his belief that current devices are “fundamentally pre-AI.”
“What was very clear for me at the time is that the world is clearly changing, but we’re using the same devices,” Chowdhury told TechCrunch. “Everything’s been designed around these existing platforms. Very few people are really going after what the future is.”
A Vision for Personal Intelligence
Hark’s stated ambition is to create a system with persistent memory of a user’s life that can listen, see, and interact with the world in real time. The company plans to design multi-modal AI models, their hardware, and their interfaces simultaneously. This approach aims to avoid what Adcock described in a January memo as the “dumb” feeling of today’s AI models and the awkward integration of AI features into existing platforms.
Adcock’s memo, shared with TechCrunch, outlined a vision for systems that “anticipate, adapt, and genuinely care about the people using them,” drawing comparisons to fictional AI assistants like Jarvis from Iron Man or Samantha from the film Her.
Skepticism on Current Wearables
While details of Hark’s specific product roadmap remain confidential, Chowdhury offered clues about the company’s design philosophy. He expressed skepticism about many current wearable AI platforms, such as smart glasses or camera pins.
“I’m not the biggest believer in a lot of the wearable AI platforms that people are talking about right now,” Chowdhury said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to put a layer between humanity and the interfaces we use in the world.”
He pointed to everyday frustrations—like filling out forms, sharing information between devices, or planning travel—as tasks that could be automated by a more deeply integrated intelligent system.
Corporate Synergy and Resources
Hark operates with significant resources and connections. The lab is backed by $100 million in personal seed funding from Adcock and employs 45 engineers and designers. Its team includes former AI researchers from Meta and designers from Apple and Tesla, all working on the same campus that houses Adcock’s other ventures.
This includes his humanoid robotics company, Figure. A Hark spokesperson confirmed that Hark’s AI models are already being trained using Figure’s robots, though they stated there is no intention to merge the two companies’ products directly.
The company also expects to begin using a new cluster of thousands of NVIDIA GPUs in April, significantly boosting its computational capacity for model training.
The Competitive Landscape
Hark enters a crowded field where major tech companies and startups are racing to define the next dominant AI consumer interface. Chowdhury’s hiring draws a parallel to another former Apple design legend, Jony Ive, who is now reportedly developing AI-native hardware at OpenAI.
The company’s integrated model-and-hardware approach also echoes strategies seen elsewhere, such as the synergy between Elon Musk’s xAI and Tesla’s work on autonomous systems. Hark’s challenge will be to translate its substantial funding and design talent into a tangible product that resonates with consumers.
What’s Next
Chowdhury indicated that the public can anticipate a first release of Hark’s AI models this summer, though the form factor and full user experience remain under wraps. The designer framed the company’s mission around the word “hark,” which means to pay attention.
“Traditional user experience always is about finding the simplest thing for everyone,” he said. “The future user experience will be finding the right thing for each individual. And I believe that can happen. But it requires a lot of work.”
For more information on AI industry developments, see the latest coverage from TechCrunch. Details on NVIDIA’s latest computing platforms are available through the company’s official announcements.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our editorial team for accuracy and quality.
