Jony Ive, former Apple design head, now working with OpenAI to build a secret AI device: Key details

Jony Ive

Jon Ivy, former Apple design chief who recently departed the company, has now joined hands with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, facilitated by Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb. This confirmation was shared by the New York Times (NYT) almost a year after Ive was first rumoured to be working with Altman on a possible OpenAI phone.

Ivy has also now confirmed that his company, LoveFrom, will be involved with designing this mysterious new iPhone competitor. The secret device is expected to integrate advanced AI functions, such as summarising information, recognising objects, and managing complex tasks. It has been dubbed as the ‘iPhone of AI.’

In this new venture, Ivy is joined by two of Apple 's former employees, Evans Hankey who succeeded Ive as Apple's design lead once, and Tang Tan, who was looking after iPhone's product development in the last few years. The NYT report also adds that for this project there are only ten employees at the moment, and they’re operating out of a sleek new 32,000-square-foot office in San Francisco.

This also marks Jon Ivy’s comeback into the tech world after he departed from Apple in 2019. He has a 27-year legacy at Apple and is often credited as the mastermind behind the designing of Apple’s products such as iMac, iPhone, and more.

Moreover, many experts believe that the combination of Ive’s design genius, Tan’s hardware expertise, and Altman’s AI prowess could lead to a groundbreaking product that could be a great rival to Apple Intelligence, which has been recently introduced with the latest iPhones.