Hark AI assistant is about to leave its waitlist. Brett Adcock, the founder and chief executive of humanoid robot maker Figure, posted on Sunday 4 October that “Hark launches this week” and that the first 100,000 people to sign up will get a paid plan for free. TestingCatalog followed on 5 October with details spotted in development builds: a home screen of widgets, persistent memory, reusable browser skills and a ladder of Pro plans.
One clarification matters before anything else. Hark is not a Figure product. It is a separate company, Hark Labs, Inc., which Adcock founded and leads alongside Figure. The Figure link explains the attention, the funding and the hardware ambitions, but the Hark AI assistant is a consumer software launch first.
This article sets out what Adcock announced, what Hark’s own pages, App Store listing and terms of service confirm, what the unreleased build suggests, how its Handoff browser agent has scored on benchmarks, and the practical risks to weigh before handing any AI agent your logins and your card.
Table of contents
- What Brett Adcock Announced About the Hark AI Assistant
- What the Hark AI Assistant Is Built to Do
- Inside the Unreleased Hark AI Assistant Build
- How Good Is Handoff? The Benchmarks Behind the Hark AI Assistant
- The Money and Hardware Behind the Hark AI Assistant
- What the Hark AI Assistant Terms Let It Do
- Where the Hark AI Assistant Fits Among Proactive Assistants
- Risks to Weigh Before You Sign Up for the Hark AI Assistant
- What Proactive Assistants Like the Hark AI Assistant Mean for Businesses
- Hark AI Assistant FAQ
- References
What Brett Adcock Announced About the Hark AI Assistant
The announcement itself is short. Everything else in this story comes from the paper trail Hark has published since March.
The launch post and the 100,000 free plans
Adcock’s post on X, timed at 23:29 UTC on 4 October, reads: “Hark launches this week. The first 100,000 sign-ups get a paid plan for free. I don’t do anything without Hark anymore. The team has obsessed over every detail, and it shows.” It links to the Hark waitlist. The post does not say which day, how long the free plan lasts, or which tier it covers.
Hark is Adcock’s company, not Figure’s
Some headlines, including TestingCatalog’s, frame the launch as Figure’s. Hark’s own legal terms name the operator as Hark Labs, Inc., and its announcements describe Adcock as “founder and CEO of Hark”. Coverage at the time of its March 2026 debut reported that Adcock seeded Hark with $100 million of his own money while continuing to run Figure. The Hark AI assistant shares a founder with Figure’s robots, not a balance sheet.
What is already live
An App Store listing for “Hark Pro”, published by Hark Labs Inc, carries a release date of 30 September 2026 and was updated to version 2.0.0 on 3 October. It is rated 17+, needs iOS 17.6 or later and had only four ratings when we checked, which points to a small invited group so far. Hark’s website still says the platform is launching soon and asks visitors to join the waitlist.
What the Hark AI Assistant Is Built to Do
Hark calls its product “personal intelligence” rather than a chatbot. The App Store listing describes it as “an operating system for your life, built to think ahead”.
Personal intelligence, not a chatbot
The pitch is that one long-running conversation, plus memory and the ability to use a computer in the cloud, lets the Hark AI assistant handle errands end to end. The listing’s example is a restaurant booking: Hark checks your calendar for a free slot, recalls favourite places, notes a friend’s food allergy on the reservation and offers a button to book a ride there.
Memory you can inspect and delete
Hark’s terms of service, last updated on 1 October, say the service “may remember information from your Inputs, Outputs, Actions, and connected Third-Party Accounts across conversations”. Users can ask to review, correct or delete that memory in settings “or by asking your agent”, and closing an account deletes it. The terms also put the burden of accuracy on the user: Hark may act on what it remembers, so you are responsible for correcting stale information.
Proactive briefs, Panels and Action Buttons
The proactive part of the Hark AI assistant shows up in three features the App Store listing names. Panels are small pieces of software Hark generates on request, from exercise trackers to media players, that live inside the app. Action Buttons turn a notification into a one-tap task such as paying a bill or replying to an invitation. Projects are separate threads for long-running work, with their own files.
Handoff: the computer-use engine
Under the hood sits Handoff, the computer-use agent Hark previewed on 5 August. For every request Hark spins up “a dedicated virtual computer with its own browser, file system, and terminal”. Handoff then clicks, scrolls and types its way through websites, including ones with no public API. Hark’s demos show it ordering on DoorDash, shopping at Target, booking OpenTable tables, messaging candidates on LinkedIn and reserving flights.
| Capability | Where Hark describes it | Status today |
|---|---|---|
| Persistent memory across chats | Terms of service, App Store listing | Described in legal terms |
| Browser tasks via Handoff | August research preview | Benchmarked, demoed |
| Purchases on your behalf | Terms of service | Allowed with confirmation or standing permission |
| Panels and Action Buttons | App Store listing | Listed for the iOS app |
| Widget home screen, soul file, browser skills | Development builds (TestingCatalog) | Unreleased |
| Own hardware devices | AT&T and NVIDIA announcements | In development |
Inside the Unreleased Hark AI Assistant Build
TestingCatalog’s report draws on material it found in development, so treat everything in this section as subject to change before or after launch.
A home screen of widgets
The build points to a personalised home screen where users create widgets connected to email, calendars and other services. The same surface would gather recurring tasks, inbox panels, weather and daily briefs. TestingCatalog says the briefs are “designed to decide whether something needs attention or Hark should stay quiet”, which is the hard part of any proactive assistant.
A Markdown soul file and browser skills
Two features stand out for power users. A Markdown-based “soul” document could control the Hark AI assistant’s personality. Reusable browser skills would let users write procedures for specific websites, so a routine such as downloading a monthly invoice runs the same way each time. The build also references research, spreadsheets, documents, image generation, website building, MCP connectors, phone access and messaging integrations.
The model mix in the configuration
The captured configuration names several outside models. A model labelled Claude Opus 5.5 is assigned to the main assistant, task agents and website building. Gemini 3.1 Flash Image handles image generation, Qwen3.6-27B and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite appear in browser-login settings, and GPT-6 Astra is named for handling browser challenges. TestingCatalog cautions that these are internal identifiers that “do not independently establish publicly available models”.
That caution matters, because Hark’s homepage says its systems are “built from scratch”. Both can be true at once: Handoff is Hark’s own post-trained model, while a general assistant layer may route to third-party models until Hark’s own pre-training is finished.
Pro, Pro², Pro³ and Pro⁴ plans
The build references four paid tiers, Pro, Pro², Pro³ and Pro⁴, with 5x and 20x usage options and automatic token top-ups. That suggests higher tiers mainly buy more usage rather than extra features. Hark has not published prices, so the value of a “free paid plan” for the first 100,000 sign-ups cannot yet be measured.
How Good Is Handoff? The Benchmarks Behind the Hark AI Assistant
Handoff is the one part of the Hark AI assistant with public, outside measurement. The results are strong on one test and mixed on others.
Online-Mind2Web
Online-Mind2Web is a human-evaluated benchmark of 300 tasks across 136 live websites. According to RuntimeWire’s reading of the official leaderboard, Handoff scored 97.7% in an evaluation dated 4 August, with 100% on easy tasks, 95% on medium and 100% on hard. It narrowly passed Yutori’s Navigator n1.5 at 97.3% and an ACT-2 system powered by GPT-5.4 at 92.7%. Careerflow.ai ran the human evaluations for all three.
The gap between first and second place is 0.4 points (97.7 minus 97.3), or roughly one task in 250. That is a lead, but a narrow one, and the benchmark is close to its ceiling.
WebTailBench and Hark’s internal test
Hark also published two comparisons it ran through its own harness with an internal language-model judge. On those, Handoff leads one and trails on the other.
| Benchmark | Hark Handoff | GPT-5.5 | Claude Opus 4.8 | Who ran it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WebTailBench v2 | 68.6 | 72.3 | 66.9 | Hark harness |
| Hark internal evaluation | 83.2 | 75.2 | 80.5 | Hark harness |
On WebTailBench v2 Handoff sits 3.7 points behind GPT-5.5 (72.3 minus 68.6). On Hark’s own test it leads Opus 4.8 by 2.7 points (83.2 minus 80.5). Hark also says Handoff costs “an order of magnitude lower” per token than competing frontier models, and eWeek reported its price as $0.18 per million input tokens and $2.37 per million output tokens.
What the numbers do not show
Benchmarks measure task completion on a fixed set of sites. They do not measure what happens when a site changes its layout overnight, demands a fresh login, or flags automated behaviour. Hark itself calls the internet “a hostile place” full of bot blocking and pop-ups. The real test of the Hark AI assistant starts when thousands of strangers connect real accounts.
The Money and Hardware Behind the Hark AI Assistant
Few consumer AI products launch with this much capital behind them, and the funding shapes what Hark is trying to build.
$700 million at a $6 billion valuation
On 20 May Hark announced “over $700 million in Series A funding at a $6 billion post-money valuation”, led by Parkway Venture Capital, with NVIDIA, Align Ventures, AMD Ventures, ARK Invest, Brookfield, Greycroft, Intel Capital, Prime Movers Lab, Qualcomm Ventures, Salesforce Ventures and Tamarack Global. Hark said its team had grown to around 70 people and that it would train its next models at a new NVIDIA B200 data centre.
Together that is at least $800 million (700 plus 100), so the Series A is 87.5% of the known total and Adcock’s own stake 12.5%. AT&T’s later investment was not priced publicly and is not included.
NVIDIA Vera Rubin compute
On 27 August Hark announced a multi-year partnership with NVIDIA, including “gigawatt-scale compute capacity on the next-generation NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform”. Hark says NVIDIA infrastructure powered Handoff’s development and will support inference at launch and the training of its own foundation models. It also uses NVIDIA’s Megatron stack for training, Dynamo for inference, Nemotron datasets for pre-training and NVSentinel for cluster resilience.
AT&T and untethered devices
On 20 August Hark announced that AT&T is investing in the company and will work on device certification and connectivity. Hark says its devices will “operate completely untethered from your phone or Wi-Fi”. Earlier standalone AI gadgets struggled to deliver on that same promise, which is why the software launch this week is the safer first step. Hardware remains the longer bet.
A timeline of promised launch dates
The Hark AI assistant has been “coming soon” for several months, and each announcement has nudged the date.
| Date (2026) | Event | Launch timing stated |
|---|---|---|
| 24 March | Hark leaves stealth (reported) | None given |
| 20 May | $700m Series A | “Available this summer” |
| 5 August | Handoff research preview | “By the end of summer” |
| 27 August | NVIDIA partnership | “Before the end of summer” |
| 30 September | Hark Pro App Store listing dated | Waitlist still open |
| 4 October | Adcock’s X post | “This week” |
A slip of a few weeks is normal for a first product. It is still worth noting that the Hark AI assistant missed its own “end of summer” target by roughly two weeks.
What the Hark AI Assistant Terms Let It Do
The terms of service are the most concrete description of how the Hark AI assistant will behave, and they are worth reading before you connect anything.
Acting as your agent for purchases
If you ask Hark to buy, book, reserve or pay for something, the terms say “you authorize Hark to act as your agent for the limited purpose of completing that Transaction”. Hark is not the merchant, so refunds go through the seller or your card issuer. You can also give “standing permission to complete a category of Transactions without asking you first”, and you are responsible for every purchase made within it.
Stored credentials and access features
To act for you, the Hark AI assistant may store “login credentials, session cookies, authentication tokens, and payment card details for third-party sites”. Separate “Access Features” can operate inside your own device using existing login sessions. If you enable them, you accept that websites will attribute those actions to you and that Hark is not liable if a site suspends your account for automated use.
Training on reviewed content
The terms say that where content “is reviewed for compliance, safety, or misuse prevention, we will use such Content for training and quality assurance purposes even where you have opted out”. The App Store listing, by contrast, stresses that Hark “will never sell your data or serve you ads”. Both statements can hold, but the training carve-out is the clause privacy-conscious users should read twice.
Top-ups, arbitration and age limits
Each subscription has a usage allowance. Extra usage comes as paid top-ups, and automatic top-ups only run if you switch them on and agree the price. Users must be at least 18. Disputes go to binding arbitration with a California arbitrator, though you can opt out within 30 days of creating an account.
Where the Hark AI Assistant Fits Among Proactive Assistants
The idea of an assistant that acts before you ask is now crowded. The Hark AI assistant arrives with a different shape from most rivals.
Agents you text
A wave of agents now lives in text messages. Our roundup of AI agents you can text counted 18 of them, and DoorDash launched its own agent you can text to order food. The App Store listing says Hark’s capabilities are shared across iOS, iMessage and the web, so it competes directly with that crowd.
Big-lab assistants going proactive
The large labs are moving the same way. xAI introduced a proactive Primary bot alongside Grok 4.7, and Perplexity’s Perplexity Computer also hands whole workflows to an agent. Hark’s bet is that one deep memory plus a stronger browser agent beats a bigger model with weaker follow-through.
Hark’s distinguishing bets
Three things set the Hark AI assistant apart on paper: a benchmark-leading browser agent, memory that spans every connected account, and a hardware roadmap with a carrier partner. The weak point is the same as every newcomer’s. It has no installed base, no published prices and no track record with real customers’ money.
Risks to Weigh Before You Sign Up for the Hark AI Assistant
None of these risks is unique to Hark. They come with any assistant that logs into your accounts and spends money, and they are sharper at launch.
Account bans from automated actions
Many sites forbid automated access in their own terms. Hark’s terms say plainly that you, not Hark, are responsible if a site detects “automated operations” and limits or closes your account. Start with low-stakes accounts, and keep anything you cannot afford to lose, such as a primary email or a bank, out of reach until the product has a track record.
Purchases you did not mean
Standing permissions are convenient and risky. A misread instruction or stale memory, such as an old address, can produce a real order you then have to unwind with the merchant. Set a spending cap where the app allows it, keep confirmations on for anything above a small amount, and check each receipt for the first few weeks.
Privacy and stored secrets
The App Store listing says Hark never sees “your most private information, like stored passwords or credit card numbers, which are always encrypted in storage and in transit”. The terms still allow Hark to store those credentials to act for you. Encryption reduces the damage of a breach; it does not remove the fact that one company holds keys to many of your accounts. Basic cybersecurity hygiene, such as unique passwords and two-factor authentication everywhere, matters more, not less.
Reliability on a hostile web
A 97.7% benchmark score still means failures. Over 100 tasks, that rate implies two or three incomplete ones (100 multiplied by 0.023 is 2.3), and real sites are messier than a benchmark set. Treat early outputs as drafts to check, which is exactly what Hark’s own terms ask: “Hark is an AI system and can make mistakes, so please review its Outputs and Actions.”
What Proactive Assistants Like the Hark AI Assistant Mean for Businesses
Even if your company never buys a seat, your staff and customers will use personal agents. That has two practical consequences.
A policy for staff using personal agents
Employees who connect a personal Hark AI assistant to work email or Slack are moving company data into a third-party memory. Decide now which accounts staff may connect, whether agents may act on company systems, and how you will offboard an agent when someone leaves. Our AI strategy work starts with exactly that inventory.
Make your own site agent-ready
Handoff and its rivals will book your tables, buy your products and fill in your forms. Sites with clean structure, predictable checkout flows and clear rules for automated visitors will win that traffic; sites that block every bot will frustrate real customers who sent one. If you are building agents of your own, our autonomous agent service covers the controls a business deployment needs.
Hark AI Assistant FAQ
When does the Hark AI assistant launch?
Brett Adcock said on 4 October 2026 that Hark “launches this week”. He did not give an exact day. An iOS listing for Hark Pro is already in the App Store with a 30 September release date.
Is Hark made by Figure?
No. Hark is run by Hark Labs, Inc., a separate company founded and led by Brett Adcock, who also runs Figure.
Is the Hark AI assistant free?
The first 100,000 sign-ups get a paid plan for free, according to Adcock. Hark has not said how long that lasts or published standard prices. Development builds reference Pro, Pro², Pro³ and Pro⁴ tiers.
What can Hark do on my behalf?
According to its terms, it can remember context, work with connected email, calendars, documents and messaging, operate a web browser, make purchases you authorise and create documents and web pages.
Does Hark use my data for training?
Its terms say content reviewed for safety or misuse can be used for training even if you have opted out. The App Store listing says Hark never sells data or shows ads.
Is it available in the UK?
Hark has not published a country list. The App Store listing appeared on the US store, and the terms reference country-specific refund rights, which suggests an international rollout is planned. Check availability when the waitlist opens.
References
Brett Adcock on X: Hark launches this week (4 October 2026)
TestingCatalog: Figure plans to release Hark AI assistant this week
Hark: Terms of Service (updated 1 October 2026)
Hark: Introducing Hark Handoff
Hark: Hark announces $700 million fundraising round
Hark: Multi-year partnership with NVIDIA
Hark: Hark and AT&T partner on connectivity for future AI devices
RuntimeWire: Hark previews Handoff browser agent after topping Online-Mind2Web
RuntimeWire: Hark says its first 100,000 sign-ups get the paid plan free
