Former Apple head designer Sir Jony Ive, who served as Steve Jobs’ right-hand man for many years, has formally partnered with OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman.
The two parties declared that the “io team, focused on developing products that inspire, empower, and enable, will now merge with OpenAI to work more intimately with the research, engineering, and product teams in San Francisco.” Sir Jony co-founded the io venture in 2024.
Given that Sir Jony and Sam Altman had been rumored to be working together on an AI hardware start-up for a few years, this move was anticipated.
io venture
The Financial Times initially revealed the initiative in September 2023, claiming that Sir Jony was in “serious” talks with OpenAI to create the “iPhone of artificial intelligence,” with the help of more than $1 billion in funds provided by Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son.
Then, in a September 2024 New York Times piece detailing his activities since quitting Apple six years prior, Sir Jony acknowledged the fact.
“A product that uses AI to create a computing experience that is less socially disruptive than the iPhone,” he stated at the time, was the stated objective of IO.
Since leaving Apple, Sir Jony and his design firm LoveFrom have worked on other hardware projects, such as a limited-edition record turntable from Linn, a British provider of home music equipment.
Joining OpenAI
In order to create a hardware product for the AI pioneer, the renowned British designer is now formally joining OpenAI.
“As io merges with OpenAI, Jony and LoveFrom will assume deep design and creative responsibilities across OpenAI and io,” said the two parties. “We could not possibly be more excited.”
“I think we have the opportunity here to kind of completely re-imagine what it means to use a computer,” Sam Altman said in an accompanying video.
Sir Jony also said in the video he believed the world was on the “brink of a new generation of technology.”
The device is “the coolest piece of tech the world has ever seen,” according to Sam Altman, who stated in the video that Sir Jony had already handed him a prototype to take home.
Additionally, the two guys discussed how they bonded and had a “shared vision.”
Prior to Wednesday’s revelation, US media reports indicated that OpenAI owned a 23 percent investment in the io firm.
According to US media, the deal is worth about $6.4 billion (£4.7 billion).
The Love of Sir Jony The design house will continue to operate independently.
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