(Credit: OpenAI)
UPDATE 6/23: OpenAI has removed all mentions of Jony Ive's startup "io" from its website and social media pages following a trademark complaint from iyO, a hearing device startup.
Original Story:
Can OpenAI reinvent the computer? The company behind ChatGPT is laying the groundwork to do just that with the help of iPhone designer Jony Ive.
On Wednesday, San Francisco-based OpenAI revealed it’s acquiring a startup, called “io,” that Ive secretly created a year ago to develop next-generation hardware to fully harness AI.
“I think we have the opportunity here to completely reimagine what it means to use a computer,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a video hyping up the announcement.
Unfortunately, no prototypes were shown. But in the clip, Altman said io’s goal is to “create a family of devices” to better use AI.
“The first one we’ve been working on...has just completely captured our imagination,” Ive said. Altman has been testing the prototype at home and says: “I’ve been able to live with it and I think it’s the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen.”
As for why io was created, Altman and Ive explained in a blog post that one problem facing generative AI is that it "remains shaped by traditional products and interfaces."
Ive and Altman began collaborating about two years ago, leading them to conclude "that our ambitions to develop, engineer and manufacture a new family of products demanded an entirely new company." So, a year ago, Ive founded io with Scott Cannon, Evans Hankey, and Tang Tan, all of whom are former Apple design chiefs.
According to the blog post, io has attracted other top hardware and software engineers, along with “the best technologists, physicists, scientists, researchers and experts in product development and manufacturing.”
The New York Times reports that OpenAI is paying $6.5 billion for the startup. In addition, Ive and his design firm LoveFrom "will assume design and creative responsibilities across OpenAl and io," the video clip says.
OpenAI says it'll share more next year. But the company won’t be the first to try and develop a hardware product that revolves around generative AI. The startup Humane, also the brainchild of former Apple employees, developed a Star Trek-like pin around AI. But the $699 product flopped and its assets were sold to HP.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.