Sam Altman and Jony Ive reveal ambitious vision for AI device to compete with iPhone

Sam Altman and Jony Ive reveal ambitious vision for AI device to compete with iPhone

During a tense in-house meeting this week, OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman provided staff with the first glimpse of the company's most ambitious project to date: a family of AI-driven gadgets created collaboratively with legendary former Apple designer Jony Ive. The pair aims to deliver 100 million such devices—dreamed up as smart "companions" that integrate into everyday life without disrupting it—quicker than any technology product in history, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The devices, still shrouded in secrecy, are intended to move users beyond screen-based interfaces and into a new paradigm of ambient AI—smart, aware, and deeply integrated into users’ environments. According to Altman, this is “the biggest thing we’ve ever done as a company.”

A post-smartphone vision

Altman and Ive have referred to the device as something that you would set on a desk next to a MacBook Pro and iPhone—though it is not a phone or wearable. Rather, it is intended to comprehend the user's environment and present contextual information without requiring a conventional screen or input device. The product, Ive stated, is "a new design movement," and Altman suggested that it has the potential to reset our understanding of how one interacts with AI.

Most importantly, the device is designed to avoid reliance on Apple's and Google's smartphone ecosystems, which are the key portals to consumer AI. Altman explained that in order to actually deliver on the promise of AI, OpenAI must "own the interface," and not just work through apps and browsers. "It is not the sci-fi dream of what AI could do to enable you," he explained of existing technology.

OpenAI to buy Ive's design studio

To realise the vision, OpenAI is set to buy Ive's design startup, *LoveFrom io*, for $6.5 billion. Ive will assume a front-rank design role at OpenAI, developing hardware strategy and device looks in much the same way he collaborated with the late Steve Jobs at Apple.

“This is the first time since Steve that I’ve felt this kind of creative alignment,” Ive told OpenAI employees. Altman added that the combination of OpenAI’s intelligence models with Ive’s design sensibility could generate $1 trillion in value.

Shipping at scale—and at speed

OpenAI has already started negotiations with manufacturers to mass-produce the devices, and Altman foretold that the company would hit the 100-million-unit mark quicker than any technology company in history. A formal launch is anticipated in late 2025.

Still, Altman was quick to caution that OpenAI wouldn’t be ready to deliver on that scale from day one. “We’re not going to ship 100 million devices literally on day one,” he said, but emphasized the goal of achieving rapid, global rollout.

The hardware will be initially sold under a subscription model—a concept tossed around by Altman at the meeting. "If you're a subscriber to ChatGPT, we should just send you new computers," he said, indicating that OpenAI considers hardware integral to the AI-user dynamic, not a peripheral.

A crowded, expensive race

Altman's vision enters a brutally competitive and historically inhospitable arena. Consumer hardware is infamous for painful prices, tight margins, and the problem of unseating entrenched players like Apple. Humane, yet another startup funded by Altman and led by former Apple executives, recently introduced an AI device that did not catch on with consumers.

OpenAI is also facing huge financial stresses. The firm has apparently informed investors that it won't turn a profit until 2029 and will lose $44 billion before doing so.

All this, however, seems to suit Altman just fine. OpenAI, he believes, has a special opportunity to rethink how humans interact with computing. "We need to go from AI as a tool you start," he said, "to AI as a presence in your life."

The dawn of a new generation?

If successful, the product might be a landmark of the post-smartphone generation. Analysts and industry experts liken it to the first iPhone—a product that transformed the way people behave, business models, and how people interact around the world.

Altman and Ive's collaboration is perhaps the AI era's response to Jobs and Ive's halcyon days. But this success will rely on more than vision alone. There will need to be spotless execution, intimate integration, and a consumer base willing to embrace a new type of digital companion—one that responds to commands, but understands.