OpenAI has announced the acquisition of io, a hardware and engineering company co-founded by legendary Apple designer Jony Ive, in a deal valued at $6.5 billion. Ive, known for shaping Apple’s product design over a 27-year career, will now lead a new hardware initiative for OpenAI. Though specific product details remain undisclosed, the project aims to create “physical AI embodiments,” potentially such as AI-integrated vehicles or humanoid robots.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been collaborating with Ive and his design firm, LoveFrom, since 2023. Ive will not join OpenAI as an employee, and LoveFrom will remain independent but will assume a key design role across both OpenAI and io. The io division will be led by OpenAI executive Peter Welinder.
OpenAI already owns 23% of io from a previous agreement and will pay an additional $5 billion in equity for full acquisition. The strategic move highlights OpenAI’s shift toward commercial hardware ventures using its AI technology, while maintaining its nonprofit governance roots established nearly ten years ago.The collaboration between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Ive aims to create the “iPhone of AI,” a new family of AI-driven products. Ive and his team will lead design and creative responsibilities for OpenAI, while the 55-member io staff will remain based in San Francisco’s Jackson Square. This strategic deal not only strengthens OpenAI’s innovation capabilities but also signifies a major economic and creative boost for San Francisco.
OpenAI’s acquisition of io, a hardware joint venture formed last year with renowned designer Jony Ive, in a $5 billion equity deal, signals OpenAI’s significant push into AI hardware, merging io’s 55-person team with OpenAI’s engineers and researchers. Despite the merger, Ive’s design firm LoveFrom will remain independent, continuing to manage creative design while io reports to OpenAI’s VP of product, Peter Welinder. Io, co-founded by former Apple veterans Evans Hankey and Tang Tan, brings elite design expertise to the new partnership.
Although specifics remain undisclosed, OpenAI and Ive hinted at a consumer-facing AI hardware product, potentially a new form of personal computing device. This move aligns with growing ambitions across the tech industry to integrate AI into everyday hardware, though past attempts—such as those by Meta, Google, and startup Humane—have faced significant challenges.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, driven by recent advances in AI capabilities, emphasized his aim to redefine computing, while Ive expressed a sense of culmination and responsibility in this collaboration. The project aims to debut its first product in 2026.
OpenAI is paying $6.5 billion to acquire io Products, a startup from legendary iPhone designer Jony Ive that bills itself as the creator of the next-generation device to shape how users interact with AI. Ive and his 50-person team will join OpenAI to design and build hardware for AI interfaces.
OpenAI is acquiring io, a hardware company founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive and several other former engineers from his time there, including Scott Cannon, Evans Hankey, and Tang Tan. Ive won’t be joining OpenAI, and his design firm, LoveFrom, will continue to be independent, but they will “take over design for all of OpenAI, including its software,” in a deal valued at nearly $6.5 billion.
About 55 hardware engineers, software developers, and manufacturing experts will join OpenAI as part of the acquisition. That includes Cannon, Hankey, and Tan. The first devices following the acquisition are set to launch in 2026.
OpenAI is acquiring io, the device startup that CEO Sam Altman and famed Apple designer Jony Ive have quietly been working on for two years, in an all-equity deal that values that startup at $6.5 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. As part of the unusual deal announced Wednesday, Ive and his design firm, LoveFrom, will now lead creative and design work at OpenAI.
“Thrilled to be partnering with Jony, [in my opinion] the greatest designer in the world,” said Altman in a post on X Wednesday. “Excited to try to create a new generation of AI-powered computers.”
OpenAI is buying Jony Ive’s startup io Products in a $6.5 billion deal and will bring the chief designer of early iPhones on board as creative head to develop devices tailored for the generative artificial intelligence era. LoveFrom, the design firm founded by Ive after leaving Apple, has been working with OpenAI for two years on generative AI devices – an area where startups have stumbled due to high computing demands, including flops such as Humane’s AI Pin.
