Exclusive: Aina’s Smart Ring Wants to Be a Remote Control for Your AI Agent

Apoorv Shankar believes that in the very near future, humans will interact with technology through a series of approvals and rejections. AI agents will proactively come to us to complete tasks, and humans will say, “Yes, order that Uber,” or “No, don't get lunch from that spot.”

But if you get multiple pings from an AI agent throughout the day, taking out your phone to say yes or no every single time will be a “bottleneck,” he says. That's why he made the Aina Ring. It has a small display and a joystick-like button that lets you quickly accept or reject an AI agent's actions with your hands. Your phone can stay in your pocket.

Aina has been in stealth for the last 15 months, though the company debuted a few experimental products at CES 2026 under a different name: Project Mirage. One was called Dune—think of it as the precursor to the Aina Ring. Connect it to your Mac and the three buttons become context-aware controls based on what you're doing. In a meeting? The buttons can turn into shortcuts for mute, camera off, or record.

Aina studied how people used Dune and developed the Aina Ring, which it’s announcing today. Preorders are live now, and the ring costs $399 for a limited time before the retail price rises to $499 when it starts shipping in January 2027.

“Approvals are going to be the future of interfaces and interaction, and we wanted to build a device that just made it easy to approve stuff,” Shankar says.

This isn't Shankar's first time with a smart ring—he previously was the vice president of hardware at Ultrahuman, a fitness- and health-tracking ring that competed with Oura. (Ultrahuman was briefly banned in the US after a patent dispute with Oura.)

The display is crucial to make sure the user knows whether an action went through. “Agents today don't respond immediately,” Shankar says. “For us to trust these devices—that what I said actually just happened—you need display confirmation.”