AI Startup Hark Hires Ex-Apple Designer Abidur Chowdhury

Artificial intelligence (AI) startup Hark reportedly hired former Apple designer Abidur Chowdhury as head of design.

Chowdhury joins 30 engineers from companies like Google, Meta and Amazon who have moved to Hark, which is working on AI models and plans to release its first one this summer, Bloomberg reported Tuesday (Jan. 6), citing Hark Founder and CEO Brett Adcock.

Chowdhury, who helped create the iPhone Air, left Apple in November, according to the report.

Bloomberg reported in November that Chowdhury had stepped down from his role at Apple to take a job with an AI startup. He had been with Apple since 2019.

The report said that Chowdhury starred in a video about the iPhone Air’s features and design process, and that appearing in such a video for Apple is considered a “high-profile assignment.”

Adcock, who also runs robotics startup Figure AI, funded Hark with $100 million of his own money and expects the two businesses to grow alongside each other, the report said.

The Information reported in December that Adcock launched the new AI lab with $100 million in funding, and reporter Stephanie Palazzolo said in a December post on X that Hark aims to build “human-centric AI.”

Meanwhile, Figure AI announced in September that it achieved a post-money valuation of $39 billion in a Series C financing round in which it raised more than $1 billion.

The company said it would use the funding to scale humanoid robots into homes and commercial operations, build next-generation GPU infrastructure to accelerate training and simulation, and launch advanced data collection efforts to improve how robots understand and operate in dynamic settings.

“This milestone is critical to unlocking the next stage of growth for humanoid robots, scaling out our AI platform Helix and BotQ manufacturing,” Figure AI said when announcing the financing round. “Support from new partners, alongside the continued backing of our existing investors, reflects both Figure’s position as the market leader and a shared belief in a future where this technology becomes a natural part of daily life.”

It was reported in April that Figure AI and UPS were considering a partnership in which the robotics startup’s humanoid robots would perform some tasks in the logistics company’s operations.