Tools for Humanity, Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning startup, announced a concert ticketing partnership with Bruno Mars that never existed, the artist’s management and tour producer confirmed this week.
At an April 17, 2026 event in San Francisco, the company unveiled Concert Kit, a product designed to give verified humans access to concert tickets. Chief product officer Tiago Sada told attendees the service would launch on Bruno Mars’ world tour for his latest album, The Romantic, offering “VIP experiences for verified humans” at select stops.
However, Bruno Mars Management and Live Nation issued a joint statement Tuesday stating the partnership “does not exist.” They told WIRED that Tools for Humanity never approached them about working together and only learned their tour was being used to promote the project after the company’s keynote announcement.
Tools for Humanity has since edited its event video and blog post, now claiming Concert Kit will instead roll out on Thirty Seconds to Mars’ 2027 European tour. A company spokesperson confirmed Wednesday there is “no agreement with Bruno Mars” but declined to explain why they announced the false partnership.
The startup, cofounded in 2019 by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Alex Blania, uses blockchain technology and iris-scanning orbs to verify human identity online. Concert Kit aims to combat bot problems on ticketing platforms like Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation.
The timing is notable: the Federal Trade Commission has been investigating Ticketmaster since September over whether it adequately prevents bots from accessing its platform. Tools for Humanity referenced the infamous Taylor Swift Eras Tour presale debacle in its press materials, where Ticketmaster faced 3.5 billion system requests in one day.
The false Mars partnership was announced alongside legitimate collaborations with Tinder, Zoom, and Docusign at the company’s Lift Off event.
Source: Business Latest