The first device OpenAI is putting out with Jony Ive won’t be a phone or a wearable and may not even have a screen at all, according to The Wall Street Journal. OpenAI chief Sam Altman reportedly talked about the company’s plans to employees after announcing that it has purchased Ive’s startup called io. The Journal said Altman told employees that they have “the chance to do the biggest thing [they’ve] ever done as a company.”
Altman and Ive gave out clues for what the company’s first device could be: They said it will be fully aware of its environment and the user’s activities, that it will unobtrusive and could either be carried around in one’s pocket or placed on a desk. The executives also believe that it’s bound to become one of people’s “core” devices after a laptop and a phone. According to the Journal, it won’t be a phone and that one of Ive’s and Altman’s goals is to wean people off screens, which means it most likely wouldn’t come with a display. Altman reportedly said that it won’t be a pair of glasses, and Ive wasn’t keen on building a product users can wear in the first place.
Whatever the device is, they intend on guarding specifics until it’s time to release it in order to prevent their competitors from copying it. They’re hoping to launch their new AI device late next year and are hoping to ship 100 million units “faster than any company has ever shipped 100 million of something new before.” Ive’s team, the Journal said, has been talking to vendors that can mass produce the device over the past four months.
OpenAI apparently started working with Ive’s startup a year-and-a-half ago. The original plan was to have Ive’s company build a product that uses OpenAI’s technology, but they realized that it could become the primary way users will interact with OpenAI’s generative AI models. And that is why OpenAI ended up acquiring the startup founded by Apple’s former chief design officer for $6.5 billion. We’ll have to wait and see whether the combination of Ive’s design and OpenAI’s tech is compelling enough to convince people to buy yet another device from a new category. A company called Humane, for instance, tried and failed to get people to purchase the Ai Pin, which it marketed “as a tiny replacement for smartphones.” In February, the company disconnected all the Pins it had sold, leaving customers without access to all of its features.
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