OpenAI Looking To Build Its First AI Device In Collaboration With Ex-Apple Designer Jony Ive

The venture could take months to be formally announced as talks around it are serious, but Sam Altman and Sir Jony Ive have not agreed to a deal.

OpenAI’s hardware efforts are at its very earliest stages. Representative image.

Source : Getty

Artificial intelligence (AI) research lab OpenAI, the creator of the viral AI chatbot ChatGPT is mulling to build the "iPhone of AI" and is seeking to raise $1 billion from SoftBank, the media has reported. The company is in early talks to create the iPhone of artificial intelligence and Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO is looking to use former Apple designer Sir Jony Ive’s design company LoveFrom to develop OpenAI’s first consumer device, says a report by Financial Times (FT).

OpenAI’s hardware efforts are at its very earliest stages. Altman and Ive have only begun what kind of hardware could do or look like.

Ive and Altman are said to have discussed what such a product would look like during brainstorming sessions at the former's San Francisco studio. The duo hopes to create a "more natural and intuitive user experience" for interacting with artificial intelligence, in the way that the iPhone’s innovations in touchscreen computing unleashed the mass-market potential of the mobile internet, the FT report added.

According to people familiar with the development, cited by FT, the venture could take months to be formally announced as talks around it are serious, but the duo has not agreed to a deal.

ChatGPT parent OpenAI once had a robotics research division but it was disbanded in July 2021 after encountering technical roadblocks.

In 2019, Ive announced he would leave Apple after 27 years to start his own design company, LoveFrom, together with industrial designer Marc Newson.  In July 2022, Apple ended its consulting agreement with him. Ive was also hired by the Agnelli family to work on Ferrari vehicles.

ChatGPT, by OpenAI in November, observed a consecutive third-month decline in monthly website traffic during August. ChatGPT grabbed the limelight by rapidly gaining popularity for its utility in various everyday tasks, including editing and coding, amassing 100 million monthly active users by January, a mere two months after its launch.