Tony Fadell, the iPod’s creator, has declared the first wave of AI gadgets a failure. Speaking at the first MIT Future Fest, he displayed three discontinued devices: the Rabbit R1, the Humane AI Pin and the Limitless pendant.

“These were kind of the ‘Gen 1’ AI products,” he said. The companies asked for his help. He declined. Fadell argued the devices flopped because they solved no genuine problem — they were “interesting technology for geeks” that did not apply to most people’s lives.

He sees a deeper mismatch: fewer than 0.01 percent of people have ever employed a human assistant, so most consumers do not know what an AI assistant is for. Trust is another hurdle after high-profile security flaws.

Fadell named Apple as one of few companies that could build a trustworthy AI assistant, since it controls hardware, chips and ecosystem — “but Apple doesn’t have all the AI stuff,” he added.