AI industry has always followed a logic: the more the model understands you, the better it can help you—and the cost of "understanding you" is that apps and devices must constantly listen to you, watch you, and record you. The privacy risks behind this are well known, but startups still rush ahead, betting that the market for personalized assistants is big enough to swallow all concerns. Peter Mo, a former Plaud executive, is betting on Ambi, a new player on this road: an AI app that offers real-time insights by constantly "listening."

On Monday, Ambi announced a $26 million funding round led by Luminous Ventures—this firm previously invested in Meituan and Auton Labs—and original equipment manufacturer Huaqin also joined. Ambi simultaneously launched apps for iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch. They essentially function as meeting recorders, but with an extra switch: users can choose to have them listen all day long, capturing context from both personal and professional life.

The traditional approach of meeting recording tools is to, after a call ends, use a series of software connectors to automatically handle follow-up tasks based on summaries and action items. Ambi wants to go one step further—letting its AI agent start working during the meeting itself. The company promises that the AI agent can proactively offer suggestions or push relevant knowledge to you during meetings, based on your calendar, past meetings, knowledge base, and web data. You can also start a task on one device and continue it on another. When explaining his motivation, Mo was straightforward: human interaction with AI is too limited, as AI is often trapped on screens. With hardware like Plaud, you have to wait for the recording to transfer to your phone, then upload it to the cloud, and only then get the results. "That's why we created Ambi, so AI can be used anytime, anywhere."

Ambi's ambitions go beyond just listening. Its upcoming desktop application will observe what you do on your computer, storing important parts into its "memory" to provide more personalized suggestions—this path has already been taken by companies like Littlebird and Minimi. The company is also planning its own hardware: a device with a screen, speaker, camera, and microphone, capable of capturing context and displaying information to you.

However, "always listening" inherently steps on a privacy minefield. Many AI devices currently lack a prominent indicator light, leaving people unaware they are being recorded. It remains unclear whether Ambi's app and future devices will provide sufficient reminders to third parties. Some meeting recording products have already faced legal issues due to recording conversations without consent, and Apple's newly launched Audio Intelligence continuous transcription feature has also brought the issue of "technology always listening" to public debate. Mo's response is that environmental data capture can be turned off at any time and is default off, the company does not store any recordings, and the data is encrypted—but he did not clarify which encryption method is used. The most critical disclosure responsibility still lies with the user, whom he openly admits is a common issue across the industry: "We need to remind users that they must inform others they are conducting environmental capture; as an industry, we haven't solved this disclosure issue yet. We've placed reminders wherever possible, but if a user deliberately hides it, we can't do anything about it."