TMTPOST — OpenAI is taking its most aggressive step so far to create a consumer-oriented company as the ChatGPT maker is joining force with the legendary designer behind the iPhone.
Credit：OpenAI
OpenAI announced on Wednesday it reached an all-equity deal to acquire Jony Ive’s AI hardware startup oi for a valuation of nearly $6.5 billion. That is OpenAI’s largest ever takeover. The company will pay $5 billion for stakes in oi following a partnership in the fourth quarter. The pair at the end of last year reached an agreement that allowed OpenAI to own a 23% stake in oi.
The deal, pending regulatory approval, is expected to complete in this summer. It enables Open to create a new hardware division as around 55 engineers, scientists, researchers, physicists and product development specialists from oi will join the company. “The io team, focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable, will now merge with OpenAI to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco,” OpenAI said a blog post at website.
Ive, former chief architect of the iPhone who left Apple in 2019, will not serve OpenAI as an employee. LoveFrom, a design studio Ive co-founded after he left Apple Inc. in 2019, will remain independent. But as io merges with OpenAI, Ive and LoveFrom “will assume deep design and creative responsibilities across ” the company, according to the blog. Ive and his firm “take over design for all of OpenAI, including its software,” Bloomberg reported.
Oi was founded by Ive with Apple veteran Evans Hankey, Tang Tan and Scott Cannon a year ago, according to the blog. It revealed Ive and “the creative collective” LoveFrom two years ago quietly began collaborating with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the team at the company. LoveFrom will receive a stake in its customer OpenAI, the Wall Street Journal cited people familiar with the matter. It was said that Altman and LoveFrom have been working together for two years and have considered options including headphones and other devices with cameras,
“Thrilled to be partnering with jony, imo the greatest designer in the world. excited to try to create a new generation of AI-powered computers,” Altman posted on X. The leader in artificial intelligence (AI) and Ive in a joint interview expected OpenAI will launch the first devices following the takeover in 2026. They declined to share what such devices could look like, though hoped to provide details that year. The two intended to “develop, engineer and manufacture a new family of products”, according to the OpenAI blog.
“AI is an incredible technology, but great tools require work at the intersection of technology, design, and understanding people and the world,” Altman said in the blog. “No one can do this like Jony and his team; the amount of care they put into every aspect of the process is extraordinary.”
“I have a growing sense that everything I have learned over the last 30 years has led me to this moment. While I am both anxious and excited about the responsibility of the substantial work ahead, I am so grateful for the opportunity to be part of such an important collaboration. The values and vision of Sam and the teams at OpenAI and io are a rare inspiration,” said Ive.
