Plaud’s new earphones come with an eSIM-enabled case for talking to AI agents

Hardware companies have realized that note-taking is one of the easiest AI use cases to build for, and consequently have been busy shoving mics into everything from pendants and rings to credit-card-sized pucks and wristbands. Still, despite the variety of devices, only a few companies have been able to stand out.

One of these companies is Plaud, which has over 2.5 million people using its hardware or software. It is now launching a note-taker in a new form factor: earphones. Called Plaud One, these adopt the simple bare-bones style of Apple’s Airpods, and can record calls, while their case can be used to record in-person conversations or take notes.

Plaud isn’t the first to this form factor. Its rivals Viaim and Anker already have similar note-taking earbuds in the market.

But the company is betting on its software and AI chops to set these apart. Plaud said that once the earbuds transcribe your conversation, its AI agent — which can connect to tools like Gmail, Google Calendar, Notion and Slack — can do things like writing follow-up emails and creating documents or presentations based on the contents of the conversation.

By itself, that isn’t a unique pitch. Software note-takers like Granola, Fathom and Read AI have been offering similar workflow automation for a while now, transcribing calls and conversations, and allowing you to subsequently get an AI agent to do various tasks.