OpenAI is acquiring Jony Ive and Sam Altman's startup, io, which will lead creative and design work for OpenAI.

OpenAI said it was buying IO, a start-up founded by Mr. Ive, the designer of the iPhone, to usher in a new era of artificial intelligence hardware.

Former Apple design chief Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are creating a mystery device for ChatGPT, sparking speculation, memes, and jokes.

Altman and Ive announced OpenAI’s acquisition of Ive’s io in a statement Wednesday, with the deal valued at roughly $6.5 billion after OpenAI acquired 23% of io in a partnership deal in 2024.

Here’s what we know: it’s probably not smart glasses. Beyond that, we don’t know much about what Jony Ive and OpenAI are building through their newly combined company io, except that it’s some kind of AI super-gadget. But after a couple of years of watching the industry try and shove AI into every form factor you can imagine, we have some guesses.

Hours after Sam Altman and Jony Ive announced that OpenAI was buying Ive’s company on Wednesday, io, in an all-stock transaction valued at $6.5 billion, Investors were happy about the hefty returns they got from the sale of io to OpenAI.

Jony Ive and Sam Altman are teaming up to make AI hardware.They aren't giving too many clues about what it would be like, but probably screen-free, and not a phone.Please, I beg you, Jony and Sam: Do not make me talk to a device in public.

More details are trickling out about Jony Ive and Sam Altman’s new AI device. In a post on Thursday, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says his research indicates that the device could be larger than Humane’s AI pin, but with a “form factor as compact and elegant as an iPod Shuffle.”