From Recording Life to Understanding Oneself: A Former Apple Interaction Engineer Aims to Redefine the Relationship between Humans and AI with "Companion Intelligence"
In 2026, the AI wearable device market is in a stage where popularity and homogenization coexist. From necklaces and ear clips to bracelets and desktop stands, various hardware forms are constantly emerging; functions such as voice - to - text transcription, life recording, and emotional companionship have almost become standard features of most products.
However, behind the hustle and bustle, a question still remains unanswered: AI wearable devices record users' lives, then what?
Victor, a former core interaction design engineer at Apple, and his startup project Noscen, start from this question and propose a new concept of "companion intelligence" - using a hardware - software integrated system to truly recognize and understand a person's long - term state and behavior in the world through continuous multi - modal Context perception. This enables AI to become a cognitive and decision - making assistance system that is always present for users, helping users improve themselves (self - improvement) in various life scenarios such as work and health, making them more efficient, healthier, and better versions of themselves.
This is a new exploration to redefine the relationship between humans and machines. Regarding the question "Will AI replace humans?", Victor's answer is: The value of AI lies in expanding human cognitive boundaries and enhancing human action capabilities, enabling people to better control their time, behavior, and life. Noscen aims to transform this ability from an abstract concept into a daily presence that can be worn and continuously experienced.
After a decade of human - computer interaction exploration in Silicon Valley, it's time to redefine the relationship between humans and machines
In the past decade, Victor has almost participated in the front - line exploration of every wave of the next - generation human - computer interaction in Silicon Valley. He started his internship at the VR company Jaunt during his postgraduate studies. Later, he joined Niantic and became the person in charge of AR interaction design for the globally popular AR game Pokémon GO, promoting AR from a technical concept to a product experience for hundreds of millions of users.
After joining Apple, he was deeply involved in projects related to hand - eye interaction and Persona applications of Apple Vision Pro, as well as Apple Intelligence - related projects, continuing to explore the human - computer relationship in the era of spatial computing and AI. Along the way, he has been constantly thinking about a question: Where is the opportunity for the next - generation computing platform to bring revolutionary changes and value to the world?
Victor, the founder of Noscen | Photo source: Respondent
The answer to this question gradually became clear after the emergence of large - scale models.
"During the period when GPT - 4 came out, I experienced a brief existential crisis," Victor admitted. Having worked in XR and human - computer interaction for many years, he always believed that the new computing platform would change the world, but the value of XR never fully convinced him. It was not until the large - scale model that he had an epiphany about this question - When people use any information system, what they ultimately want to obtain is not more information, but more effective information, that is, information that is truly useful to a specific person at the right time and in the right scenario.
"XR increases the bandwidth of information output, while AI, especially personal AI, increases the efficiency of information," Victor said. In his view, the value of lightweight wearable devices is not just to become a new computing output terminal, but to serve as the eyes, ears, and expression entrance of personal AI, continuously understanding the context of human - world interaction.
This understanding also comes from his own experiment. He once gave his long - term diaries and thinking records to the large - scale model, allowing AI to gain insights into his thinking patterns, personality traits, and behavior patterns that he himself was unaware of, and to provide him with career guidance, health advice, and personal growth suggestions. "That was the first time I truly felt the power of context," he said. "AI brings the universality of computing, but human problems are personal. General advice may be correct, but it may not be effective; only by truly understanding a person can AI provide useful and implementable solutions for him.
Most of human problems and sufferings stem from the lack of the ability to apply knowledge in the real world.
His startup company is named Noscen, which comes from the Latin meaning of "cognition, recognition", and also echoes the classic maxim of the Temple of Delphi: Know yourself.
In Victor's underlying logic, many of people's problems and sufferings - whether it's low efficiency, health imbalance, emotional exhaustion, or broader life dilemmas - are not just because of the lack of general knowledge, but because people often lack a deep understanding of themselves and find it difficult to transform correct knowledge into correct judgments and actions in specific scenarios.
"The large - scale model has mastered the sum of world knowledge to a large extent, but it doesn't understand you," Victor said. For personal AI, context is not only the boundary condition for calculating current problems, but also the raw material for forming personal knowledge. What Noscen wants to do is to generate knowledge about the user from the long - term life context, combine this personal knowledge with general world knowledge, and transform it into executable judgments, reminders, and action suggestions in specific situations to assist users in better interacting with the world and solving real - life problems.
"In my opinion, this will be a general solution to many human problems and sufferings at the technical level," Victor said. "Because in essence, it is a more effective and extensive improvement of human cognitive and action capabilities."
This is exactly why Noscen chooses self - improvement as its first value anchor: to enable people not to be replaced in the AI era, but to continuously grow and evolve with the help of AI and become the best version of themselves. The sum of the progress of countless individuals is the progress of society.
Personal causal modeling: Only when AI understands an individual's deep - seated behavior patterns can it effectively help with self - improvement
Imagine an afternoon - you've had three high - intensity meetings in a row and can't stop scrolling through short videos when you get back to your desk. An ordinary product would pop up a message saying "It's time to stop" after you exceed the time limit. What Noscen wants to do is not this. It wants to figure out: Why does this behavior keep happening?
The real triggers often don't lie on the screen, but in the few hours before - a meeting, a meal, or a repeatedly postponed task. Only by seeing these hidden connections can AI provide more appropriate interventions before you enter a low - quality cycle, help you recover your state, or break down a daunting task into easier next steps.
Victor calls this ability personal causal modeling. "The ultimate goal of obtaining context is not for recording, but for gaining insights and transforming these insights into actions," he said. In his view, most AI wearables today are still helping users remember and summarize. Noscen's core product judgment is that personal AI must take a step further - from "helping you remember" to "helping you see clearly" and "assisting you in decision - making". It needs to identify the unique link between state, behavior, and result that belongs only to you. These causal links essentially explain what influences us and how we can change.
Work and health are the two scenarios where this ability is first implemented. But in Noscen's view, they are not two separate things, but manifestations of the underlying variable of a person's "state" in two mutually influencing dimensions.
A person's health state - stress level, energy reserve, and life rhythm - will directly affect his work state: attention, judgment quality, and work performance; while work rhythm and meeting intensity will in turn affect his health state and long - term recovery.
For example, if you schedule three high - intensity meetings back - to - back next Monday, on the surface, it's just a scheduling problem. Noscen recognizes that similar arrangements have occurred multiple times in the past and led to the same results - overeating that night, a decline in judgment quality the next day, and an inability to recover energy all day on Wednesday. Identifying this cross - dimensional state trajectory and finding the hidden personal knowledge within is exactly what personal causal modeling does.
This is Noscen's understanding of self - improvement: It's not the anxiety created by a bunch of cold data, nor is it asking users to be more self - disciplined against human nature. Instead, it's about being present for the long term and continuously understanding - establishing a causal model for each person, finding the key leverage points that affect state and behavior, and then changing actions in the least - friction way to gradually form better work methods, life rhythms, and self - regulation abilities.
This is also why Noscen's first - generation product is in the form of a pendant and adheres to dual - modal input of vision and audio from the beginning. In Victor's view, language is often a biased description of the world by people: the content a person says has often been subjectively selected and interpreted; while vision contains things that are objectively happening but not spoken. What Noscen wants to understand is not just what the user says and sees, but what the user truly experiences.
Noscen is first designed for knowledge workers, managers, entrepreneurs, and those who continuously invest in efficiency, health, and self - management. For this group of people, what is truly scarce is not more tools, but a personal AI that can understand them in the long term and help them make better actions at critical moments.
Do what has the greatest impact on the world in your area of expertise
"My entrepreneurial mission is actually very simple, but also very difficult," Victor said. "It's to do what has the greatest impact on the world in my area of expertise."
Noscen is not a pursuit of the AI hardware trend, but the implementation of this mission. "What I'm concerned about is how to use technology to help as many people as possible expand the possibilities of their lives and reduce the pain caused by inefficiency, illness, aging, a sense of powerlessness, and uncontrollable fate," he said.
He starts from "self - improvement" because the quality of life is shaped by daily specific actions - work methods, diet, rest, emotions, communication, and self - management. These daily behaviors not only determine an individual's health, relationships, and creativity but are also the basic units of the operation of organizations, families, and society. Self - improvement is not a need exclusive to a specific group but a universal need for everyone to live a better life. By positively influencing people's judgments and actions in the long term through AI, it changes not just one person's day, but the most fundamental starting point for world change.
"I hope technology can help people see themselves more clearly and change and improve themselves more effectively. I believe it can help everyone," Victor said. "What Noscen wants to influence is precisely the most fundamental starting point of world change - the 'individual'."
"What we're doing is very important and difficult," Victor said. "To achieve it, both the innocence of a child and strong action ability are indispensable. So we're also looking for like - minded partners to join this journey."
Currently, Noscen has completed a seed - round financing of millions of US dollars from top - tier US dollar VCs. It is also actively recruiting excellent hardware and AI talents to form a team spanning Silicon Valley and China. It plans to launch its first - generation product from the end of this year to the beginning of next year, targeting the North American market first.
This article is from the WeChat official account "GeekPark" (ID: geekpark). Author: Lian Ran, Editor: Jing Yu. Republished by 36Kr with permission.