Adding an exclamation point to what appears to be a big shift in strategy, OpenAI, the company leading artificial intelligence research and which has already announced new services that turn its machines into rentable computing resources anyone can use, has acquired io, a stealth startup co-founded by Sir Jony Ive, the designer who led Apple’s design team since the 1990s.
The agreement, for a whopping $6.5 billion in all-stock, is OpenAI’s largest acquisition yet and suggests the group’s goals to build a next generation of artificial intelligence-powered hardware.
His departure from the tech giant, where he was instrumental in designing the groundbreaking iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, came in 2019, when he launched his own design firm, LoveFrom. Io was later formed as a collaboration between Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in the past year, based on an earlier 23% stake OpenAI held.
Under this acquisition, Ive, as well as a team approximately 55 io employees, including former Apple engineers and designers, will come into OpenAI with an aim to lead hardware team for OpenAI.
Whereas the details of the AI hardware are not revealed, both Altman and Ive indicate that it’s a full on ground up killer product that goes beyond screens and interfaces as we know it. In a joint statement, they said they aimed to “develop, engineer and manufacture a new family of products.”
Rumors hold that the new devices could span from a pair of state-of-the-art AI assistants in a never-before-seen form factor and all the way to entirely new categories for consumer technology, designed to make adapting AI into our daily lives easy.
According to industry analysts, this acquisition has put OpenAI in the driver’s seat in leading not just in AI models, but defining the future of human-computer interaction in the AI age. Altman, an AI visionary, and Ive, a design legend, have stoked plenty of interest and curiosity in the tech industry.
The $6.5 billion purchase will close in the coming months, pending the necessary regulatory approvals. The decision reflects the company’s desire to expand its reach from software into the world of physical products and could lay the foundation for a new kind of innovation powered by AI. The first plans from this partnership are expected to emerge as soon as the 2026 season.
