OpenAI is shopping for io, an AI gadget startup based by iPhone designer Jony Ive, in a $6.5 billion all-stock deal as OpenAI makes an attempt to outline the AI-powered gadgets market. OpenAI acquired a 23% stake in io final 12 months and invested within the startup at the moment.
The acquisition is the largest in OpenAI’s historical past and was introduced on Wednesday, mere weeks after OpenAI agreed to purchase AI-assisted coding device Windsurf for about $3 billion. The deal is meant to spark a brand new technology of merchandise for a future the place AI expertise attains or surpasses human intelligence.
As a part of the acquisition, Ive and his workforce of about 55 engineers, designers, and researchers will be part of OpenAI in artistic and design roles that enable them to form AI gadgets for customers. They are going to construct {hardware} that helps folks work together with ChatGPT extra intuitively, with out having to go on an online browser or an app on their telephones.
Jony Ive. Picture by Lia Toby/BFC/Getty Pictures
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Ive have been collaborating for 2 years on a secretive mission to maneuver folks past screens and into different kinds of AI-powered gadgets. The Wall Avenue Journal reviews that the 2 have been contemplating AI headphones and different devices with cameras.
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In a launch video on Wednesday saying the deal, Altman referred to as Ive “the deepest thinker of anybody I’ve ever met,” and Ive complimented Altman in flip, calling him “a visionary.”
“I believe we’ve got the chance right here to utterly reimagine what it means to make use of a pc,” Altman mentioned within the video.
Whereas each had been quiet concerning the particulars of a household of latest AI merchandise, they teased that the merchandise had been groundbreaking and would arrive someday subsequent 12 months. Altman went so far as to name one unnamed product he interacted with “the good piece of expertise the world has ever seen.”
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Ive began working at Apple in 1992 and performed a vital function in designing the iPhone, iPad, iMac, and different Apple merchandise. He left in 2019 to create his personal design agency, LoveFrom, which has since landed offers with Airbnb and Ferrari.
Altman has explored AI gadgets earlier than. In 2020, he invested within the startup Humane, which developed an Ai Pin that fell flat with customers because of overheating points and a lagging interface.
OpenAI reported final month that ChatGPT had 500 million international weekly customers.
OpenAI is shopping for io, an AI gadget startup based by iPhone designer Jony Ive, in a $6.5 billion all-stock deal as OpenAI makes an attempt to outline the AI-powered gadgets market. OpenAI acquired a 23% stake in io final 12 months and invested within the startup at the moment.
The acquisition is the largest in OpenAI’s historical past and was introduced on Wednesday, mere weeks after OpenAI agreed to purchase AI-assisted coding device Windsurf for about $3 billion. The deal is meant to spark a brand new technology of merchandise for a future the place AI expertise attains or surpasses human intelligence.
As a part of the acquisition, Ive and his workforce of about 55 engineers, designers, and researchers will be part of OpenAI in artistic and design roles that enable them to form AI gadgets for customers. They are going to construct {hardware} that helps folks work together with ChatGPT extra intuitively, with out having to go on an online browser or an app on their telephones.
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