OpenAI announced today that it will acquireio, a hardware AI startup co-founded by Jony Ive. Ive has been working with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on io for two years, and the two are expected to develop a range of AI devices together.
"I feel more and more that everything I've learned over the past 30 years has led me to where I am today, to this moment," Ivey said. According to Altman, OpenAI and OpenAI will develop a product that is "unprecedented in consumer hardware," and Ive said his collaboration with OpenAI will "catalyze a series of products." Altman said technological leaps in artificial intelligence require "a new form of computing to maximize its potential."
Ive will be involved in the design of the device, as will several former Apple design employees who worked on the io project, including Don Tan, Scott Cannon, and Evans Hankey. Evans Hankey served as Apple's design director after Ive left Apple in 2019. Designer Marc Newson, who has worked with Ive on several products, also joined the team. Hankey, Tangtan and Cannon will join OpenAI.
OpenAI has been in talks with Altman and Ivey about an acquisition or partnership since April. OpenAI will provide AI expertise for the device, io will handle engineering and LoveFrom will handle design. LoveFrom will take over all design work for OpenAI.
Ive and Altman had already begun discussing some kind of AI hardware device as early as 2023, before OpenAI was formed. Ive and Altman wanted to create a device that was more disruptive than the iPhone, and past descriptions suggested it would be similar to a smartphone without a screen. Similar screen-less voice AI devices like the Rabbit R1 and Humane Ai Pin have not fared well so far, but Ive is known for his design expertise and OpenAI is an industry leader. The collaboration has the potential to lead to transformative devices that no other company can produce.
OpenAI's efforts to build AI hardware products will put it in direct competition with Apple. Apple is lagging behind in AI development, and people are waiting for the next big product to replace the iPhone in the future. The first device from OpenAI’s partnership with Ivey is expected to be “a completely new product.”
“There’s a hunger for new things, and that reflects a certain unease with the status quo,” Ive said of the products currently on the market. Ivey and Ultraman's first device is expected to be released in 2026.
OpenAI's acquisition of io is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close this summer. This is OpenAI's largest acquisition to date, with the company spending $6.5 billion to acquire io, according to Bloomberg.