These new AI earbuds record every conversation you have – and act on it for you
Key Points
- Plaud opened pre-orders for the Plaud One Explorer Edition on 27 August at $249.99
- The device works as earbuds or a standalone case and records calls, meetings and in-person conversations
- A built-in eSIM with 4G LTE uploads recordings for transcription without a paired phone
- Plaud Agent connects to Gmail, Google Calendar, Notion and Slack to complete follow-up tasks
- Shipments begin in the fourth quarter of 2026, alongside the Plaud App 4.0 rollout
Plaud has opened pre-orders its the Plaud One Explorer Edition, a $249.99 (£185) wearable that records conversations and then acts on what it hears.
The San Francisco company describes the device as a wearable interface between people and AI agents.
Plaud One works either as a pair of earbuds or through its standalone case, and it captures phone calls, online meetings, in-person conversations and spoken notes.
A built-in eSIM with 4G LTE keeps the device online without a paired phone, uploading recordings for transcription and summarisation as the conversation happens.
That uploaded material forms a running context layer, which the software then uses to link decisions across separate meetings and prepare follow-up work.
The device runs on Plaud Intelligence, the company’s conversation platform, which Plaud rebuilt for this launch with longer-lived memory and persistent context.
At the centre of the platform sits Plaud Agent, which reads the intent behind a conversation and then carries out the resulting tasks.
Plaud Agent connects directly to Gmail, Google Calendar, Notion and Slack, so users do not open a separate app to finish a job.
The agent draws on a library of workflows the company calls Skills, along with curated bundles of those workflows for particular roles, which it calls Plugins.
It also produces finished documents, which Plaud calls Artifacts, and users can edit, share or export them as soon as they appear.
Plaud set out several examples of the work it expects the device to handle, including:
- A sales lead drafting a client follow-up on the walk out of the meeting
- An executive requesting a briefing on the last client conversation before entering the room
- A consultant turning a workshop into a findings report
- A chief of staff scheduling a Monday routine that reviews the previous week and sends a structured briefing
“AI agents become truly useful when they understand the context in which human intent is formed,” said Nathan Xu, CEO and co-founder of Plaud.
Xu said that context lives in conversation, and that the Explorer Edition exists because interfaces get proven by the people who use them at work.
Every Explorer Edition ships with $200 in Plaud Credits, which pay for the agent features and other AI tools on the platform.
Plaud’s existing subscription plans carry over to the new device on the same terms they run on its current hardware.
Shipments start in the fourth quarter of 2026, and pre-orders opened at 9am EDT in selected markets.
The same features reach older Plaud hardware through the Plaud App 4.0 update, which also rolls out in the fourth quarter with a redesigned interface.
