Ive joins OpenAI hardware push
- Reports say former Apple design chief Jony Ive is working with OpenAI on new hardware after io Products was acquired. - Coverage notes io Products was acquired for about $6.5 billion and that the new device reportedly “won’t be a phone.” - The collaboration implies future product narratives may need to explain ambient, less-screened interfaces and new device form factors (businessinsider.com)
OpenAI is moving deeper into hardware with Jony Ive, the former Apple design chief, after folding his startup io into the company in 2025. (openai.com) OpenAI and Ive said on May 21, 2025 that io had been founded a year earlier by Ive, Scott Cannon, Evans Hankey and Tang Tan, and that the team would merge with OpenAI in San Francisco. CNBC reported the all-stock deal at about $6.4 billion, with OpenAI saying it already owned 23% of io and would pay roughly $5 billion more in stock. (openai.com) (cnbc.com) The arrangement also split responsibilities in a specific way: io came in-house, while Ive and his design firm LoveFrom stayed independent and took on what OpenAI called “deep design and creative responsibilities” across the company. Bloomberg and CNBC both described the purchase as OpenAI’s largest acquisition to date. (openai.com) (bloomberg.com) (cnbc.com) What OpenAI appears to want is not another chatbot app but a new way to use artificial intelligence in a physical product. In their May 2025 letter, Altman and Ive wrote that computers can now “see, think and understand,” but that people still experience them through older product shapes and interfaces. (openai.com) Reports on the first device point in the same direction. Coverage of a Wall Street Journal report said Altman told employees the product would not be a phone, would not be a wearable, could be carried in a pocket or set on a desk, and might not have a screen at all. (engadget.com) (techcrunch.com) That puts OpenAI in a category where recent products have struggled. Humane, another startup founded by former Apple employees, sold the Ai Pin as a smartphone alternative and shut down the device’s connected features in February 2025 after a poor reception. (engadget.com) Ive brings a record that helps explain why OpenAI made the bet anyway. At Apple, he led the design of products including the iPhone, iPad, iPod and MacBook Air before leaving in 2019 to start LoveFrom. (cnbc.com) The project has also pulled in other former Apple hardware leaders. OpenAI said io was founded with Evans Hankey, who briefly succeeded Ive in Apple’s design organization, and Tang Tan, a longtime Apple executive tied to iPhone and Apple Watch product work. (openai.com) (cnbc.com) The timeline is still unsettled. Reports in May 2025 pointed to a possible late-2026 launch, but later coverage citing court filings said the first Jony Ive-designed OpenAI device would not ship before 2027. (engadget.com) (macrumors.com) For now, the clearest fact is that OpenAI has decided its next platform push may need a new object, not just a new model. Ive’s role gives that effort a designer identified with the last major shift in personal computing hardware. (openai.com) (bloomberg.com)
