OpenAI is said to have discussed acquiring the AI hardware startup that former Apple design lead Jony Ive is building with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. According to The Information, OpenAI could pay around $500 million for the fledgling company, called io Products.
Ive, who left Apple in 2019 to start his own design firm called LoveFrom, confirmed that he was working with Altman on the AI hardware startup last year in an interview with The New York Times. io Products has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Laurene Powell Jobs’s Emerson Collective and others, according to The Information.
The Information’s report notes that OpenAI may end up partnering with instead of acquiring io Products, which currently has a small team that includes former Apple designers Tang Tan and Evans Hankey. io Products has reportedly been working on different concepts of AI-enabled devices, including smart home gadgets. Last year, The New York Times said that the startup’s goal was to build products that are “less socially disruptive than the iPhone.”