Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated in a virtually 10-minute video posted to X on Wednesday that the Apple pioneer’s” creative shared” will “merge with OpenAI to work more closely with the research, engineering, and product groups in San Francisco.” Io is being purchased by OpenAI for$ 5 billion in equity, according to OpenAI.
Ive and Altman both wrote musings on technology in the promotional video, which was shot against the backdrop of the Golden Age of San Francisco, but the two never really explain what they’re building. At the end of the video, the text reads,” We look forward to sharing our work next year.” It’s likely a consumer-facing product given the pair’s focus on creating a hardware device for the AI era and Ive’s pedigree at Apple.
Io was created as part of a collaboration between OpenAI and LoveFrom, Ive’s design firm, last spring. Io and OpenAI signed an official agreement in the fourth quarter of last year that gave OpenAI a 23 percent stake in Io. OpenAI is currently acquiring the business in full.
The merger is a little challenging. Prior to this announcement, the Io team had 55 members. According to a blog post on OpenAI’s website, the group will now include both Io and OpenAI employees: “experts in product development and manufacturing” as well as hardware and software engineers, physicists, scientists, and others. The creative design process will be managed by Ive and Lovefrom. According to OpenAI, Ive will remain independent, and his company LoveFrom will continue to be run independently. Instead, the Io team will report to Peter Welinder, the organization’s vice president of product, after eight and a half years.
The founding team of Io has significant design talent. Evans Hankey and Tang Tan, both of whom worked for Apple, are among the founders of Beyond Ive. Those who have collaborated closely with them claim to have worked with people who they consider to have exceptional taste.
By bringing on Ive, OpenAI is now likely to be working on one of the most ambitious AI hardware projects to date. In recent years, a number of other major tech companies, including Meta and Google, have tried creating AI-powered devices like smart glasses, but mainstream adoption of the technology has been slow and some devices have experienced glitches.
A wearable device was introduced in late 2023 by Humane, another well-known AI hardware startup founded by former Apple employees. Later, reviewers discovered that the pin, which was connected to a pin, was susceptible to overheating and a number of other problems. Less than two years later, Humane’s products were discontinued, and the company’s software and patents were sold to printers like a gondola, HP.
Advancements in AI and compute power helped Altman and Ive’s joint effort. According to OpenAI’s blog post,” computers are now seeing, thinking, and understanding.”
Ive has reportedly been looking for new imprints in the design industry since he left Apple in 2019, and Altman reportedly has ambitions for hardware beyond the generative AI software his company develops and sells. I’ve been claiming in the video that” I have a growing sense that everything I have learned over the past 30 years has led me to this moment.” ” I’m anxious and excited about the responsibility of the substantial work that lies ahead, but I’m also very grateful for the chance to be a part of such a significant collaboration,” I said.
