Jony Ive confirms he is working on a new device with OpenAI

Jony Ive has confirmed that he is working with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on an AI hardware project. The confirmation was made today as part of a profile of Ive in The New York Timesalmost a year after the possibility of a collaboration between Altman and the longtime Apple designer was first reported.

There are not many details about the project. Reportedly, I met Altman through Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb, and the project is funded by Ive and the Emerson Collective, Laurene Powell Jobs' company. The Just reports that it could raise $1 billion in funding by year-end, but does not mention Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank who was rumored to have invested $1 billion in the project last year.

The project currently employs just 10 people, but includes Tang Tan and Evans Hankey, two key people who worked with Ive on the iPhone. LoveFrom, Ive's company, is leading the design of the device, according to the report. The team is currently working out of a 32,000-square-foot office building in San Francisco, part of a $90 million strip of land Ive bought on a single city block.

And what about the device itself? Just says that Ive and Altman discussed “how generative AI made it possible to create a new computing device because the technology could do more for users than traditional software due to its ability to process complicated requests.” Last year, there were rumors that it was inspired by touchscreen technology and the original iPhone.

But it seems that not all details have been finalized yet. LoveFrom co-founder Marc Newson told Just that the AI ​​product – and the timing of its market launch – is still in the development phase.