OpenAI Acquires Jony Ive’s AI Device Startup for $6.4 Billion

OpenAI is not going to let Microsoft and Google dominate the AI narrative this week: The company just announced that it’s acquiring io, the AI device startup co-founded by Jony Ive, Apple’s former Chief Design Officer. The $6.5 billion all-stock deal is OpenAI’s biggest acquisition to date, and it will lead Ive to “assume deep creative and design responsibilities across OpenAI and io.”

In the announcement, OpenAI said that Jony and his team of designers at LoveFrom, a collective he founded back in 2019, started collaborating with OpenAI two years ago. The collaboration continued after Jony Ive co-founded io, a new AI device startup last year.

“We gathered together the best hardware and software engineers, the best technologists, physicists, scientists, researchers and experts in product development and manufacturing. Many of us have worked closely for decades. 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,” OpenAI said today.

Jony Ive left a profound mark on Apple products after working for the company for 27 years. His influence increased after he started overseeing software design in 2012, a year after Steve Jobs’ passing. Ive pretty much disappeared from the spotlight following his departure from Apple back in 2019, but the veteran designer seems very excited about his future responsibilities.

“I have a growing sense that everything I have learned over the last 30 years has led me to this moment,” Ive said in a statement. “While I am both anxious and excited about the responsibility of the substantial work ahead, I am so grateful for the opportunity to be part of such an important collaboration. The values and vision of Sam and the teams at OpenAI and io are a rare inspiration.”

You probably remember the popular quote from computer science pioneer Alan Key, which Steve Jobs mentioned on several occasions. “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.” It’s not exactly clear what kind of new product OpenAI is working on, but Bloomberg reports that it may come to market in 2026.

“In the same way that the smartphone didn’t make the laptop go away, I don’t think our first thing is going to make the smartphone go away,” Altman told Bloomberg. “It is a totally new kind of thing.” OpenAI’s acquisition of io is expected to be completed this summer, pending regulatory approvals.