Aina's $399 smart ring is a yes-or-no button for your AI agent

Aina founder Apoorv Shankar thinks the future of computing is a stream of approvals: your agent proposes, you say yes or no. Pulling out your phone every time is the bottleneck, so he made a ring, Julian Chokkattu reports for WIRED.

What it does

The titanium ring carries a tiny screen and a little joystick to accept or reject an agent's actions without touching your phone. It connects to iPhones and Macs and learns your routines from location, calendar, email and connected services like Uber and Spotify. Then it surfaces "Aina Cues": put on running shoes at 6 a.m. and it offers last night's podcast; at 8:30 it suggests your usual Uber; running late for a Zoom call, it offers to email that you'll be late. Flick yes and it's done.

You can write your own cues in plain language, like a nudge to start the coffee machine. For unsupported apps, you can connect an agent like Muse or Instinct to handle tasks through virtual browsers. Press the center button to talk to your agents. The display confirms whether an action actually went through, which Shankar says is key to trust, since agents don't respond instantly.

Preorders are $399 for a limited time, rising to $499 when it ships in January 2027. Shankar was previously VP of hardware at smart ring maker Ultrahuman. Aina showed an earlier Mac controller called Dune at CES 2026 under the name Project Mirage.

The catch

A ring that knows your location, calendar and email to predict your next move is a lot of trust to hand a startup. And how useful it is depends on which apps are supported. But the core idea, that agents need a fast, low-friction way to get permission, is right, and approvals are where agent products will win or lose users.

Scoreboard update: AI +1. Agents do the planning, and the human's job shrinks to a flick of the finger.

Stay undead.