- Sam Altman’s OpenAI is buying an AI hardware startup from former Apple design chief Jony Ive.
- Ive’s start-up, io, will work with OpenAI’s research, engineering, and product teams.
- Ive is the designer responsible for some of Apple’s iconic products, including the iPhone.
Sam Altman’s OpenAI announced on Wednesday that it is buying a hardware startup called io from Jony Ive, the former Apple exec who led the design of the iPhone and other iconic products.
Ive and his design firm, LoveFrom, began working with Altman and OpenAI two years ago, the company said, before founding the AI hardware startup one year later. Ive left Apple in 2019 after nearly 30 years at the company.
Now, io will merge with OpenAI to “work more intimately with the research, engineering, and product teams in San Francisco,” according to a press release.
A video of Altman and Ive posted to OpenAI’s social media says the two tech titans are teaming up to create a “family of AI products.”
Sitting in a San Francisco cafe together in the video, Altman says he and Ive started talking two years ago about “what the future of AI and new kinds of computers was going to look like.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.