AI hearing aids: how Whisper is rebuilding the worst consumer product

Executive overview

Hearing aids are one of the most neglected consumer products — expensive, ineffective, and socially stigmatised. Andrew Song founded Whisper after discovering his grandfather had hidden his hearing aids in a drawer rather than wear them.

Whisper uses AI to isolate and emphasise the voice of whoever is speaking, addressing the core failure of traditional devices. The company ships on a subscription model to lower cost barriers.

The technology gap between what AI can do for hearing and what today's hearing aids actually deliver is the entire opportunity.

From software engineer to product builder

• Six co-op terms at Waterloo always pulled toward product building, not writing code
• Joined Facebook as a PM despite interviewing badly — hired as a safety net engineer-turned-PM
• Key early lesson: you can't "cover everything"; clarity on why a product exists is the only lever
• Developed a discipline for objective, real-world product assessment over internal assumptions

The founding insight

• Grandfather's hearing aids were so poor he stopped wearing them; Song discovered them hidden in a drawer
• Hearing loss is often private — people reject the diagnosis and resist wearing visible devices
• Traditional aids amplify everything; Whisper's AI separates speech from background noise
• The market is tens of billions of dollars globally; one in eight Americans has hearing loss

Building the hardware

• Early prototypes: laptops, headphones, and handheld microphones — not a hearing aid at all
• Iterated through 15+ distinct hardware versions before a shippable product
• Recurring near-death moments: microphone failures, water-resistance failures post-shower
• Core principle adopted early: be fast rather than right — being right is too hard, so find out you're wrong quickly
• Launched first product in 2020, mid-pandemic, on real patients

What the product actually does

• AI emphasises the primary speaker and suppresses background noise in real time
• Reduces the cognitive load ("mental exhaustion") of straining to hear in noisy environments
• Subscription pricing makes the hardware more affordable than traditional hearing aids
• Restoring hearing restores confidence and social presence — not just auditory function

The founding philosophy

• "Know your truth" — a clear, honest internal view of what the product does and why it matters
• Decisions become easier when you can articulate that truth; they become impossible when you can't
• False successes and false failures are constant; the answer is continuous refinement, not milestones
• Song's grandfather died shortly before this interview; the personal motivation remains the guiding light