OpenAI Government Officer Sam Altman seems on display all over a chat with Microsoft Chairman and Government Officer Satya Nadella on the Microsoft Develop 2025, convention in Seattle, Washington on Would possibly 19, 2025.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Photographs
OpenAI mentioned on Wednesday that it’s purchasing Jony Ive’s AI gadgets startup io for approximately $6.4 billion in an all-equity offer that pushes that synthetic knowledge corporate firmly into the sector of {hardware}.
Ive is taking over “deep creative and design responsibilities across OpenAI and io,” the corporate mentioned in a remark. OpenAI mentioned that io is coming in-house, moment Ive and his “creative collective” referred to as LoveFrom will keep free.
In a blog post on Wednesday from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Ive, the pair mentioned that io used to be based a hour in the past by means of Ive, along side Apple alumni Scott Cannon, Tang Tan and Evans Hankey, who in short took over Ive’s position at Apple then he departed.
“The io team, focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable, will now merge with OpenAI to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco,” the publish mentioned.
OpenAI mentioned it’s paying $5 billion within the transaction, because it already owns 23% of the corporate. Altman wrote in a post on X that he believes Ive is “the greatest designer in the world.”
The acquisition is by means of some distance OpenAI’s biggest and is derived weeks then the corporate affirmative to shop for AI-assisted coding device Windsurf for $3 billion. Previous to that, OpenAI received analytics database corporate Rockset for an mysterious sum in 2024.
Ive introduced in 2019 that he used to be resignation Apple, the place he used to be the longtime prominent design officer, to start out LoveFrom. Airbnb mentioned in 2020 that Ive used to be consulting with the corporate on hiring and time merchandise. The Unused York Occasions reported extreme hour that LoveFrom’s shoppers pay the company as much as $200 million a hour and that its designers on the month had been operating on tasks for Christie’s, Airbnb and Ferrarri.
LoveFrom says on its web site that it used to be based by means of Ive and clothier Marc Newson, however the doesn’t say anything else about what the corporate does or come with any point out of io.
Apple prominent design officer Jony Ive (L) and Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner investigate cross-check the pristine iPhone XR all over an Apple particular match on the Steve Jobs Theatre on September 12, 2018 in Cupertino, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Photographs Information | Getty Photographs
Ive is answerable for designing Apple‘s maximum iconic merchandise, together with the iPod, iPhone, iPad and MacBook Wind. He additionally helped design Apple’s pristine Cupertino headquarters, referred to as Apple Terrain, a venture that started in 2004 with the campus formally opening in 2019.
Information of the purchase comes as OpenAI, which used to be just lately valued at $300 billion in a investment spherical led by means of SoftBank, is dashing to stick forward within the generative AI race, the place competition together with Google, Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI are making an investment closely and steadily rolling out pristine merchandise. A part of staying forward in that race comprises shoring up its {hardware} operations.
To additional its {hardware} ambitions, OpenAI leased the previous head of Meta’s Orion augmented fact glasses initiative in November to supremacy its robotics and client {hardware} efforts. Caitlin “CK” Kalinowski wrote in a press release on the month that the position would “initially focus on OpenAI’s robotics work and partnerships to help bring AI into the physical world and unlock its benefits for humanity.”
Additionally past due extreme hour, OpenAI invested in Bodily Wisdom, a robotic startup based totally in San Francisco, which raised $400 million at a $2.4 billion valuation. Alternative traders incorporated Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The startup makes a speciality of “bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world,” in step with its web site, by means of growing large-scale AI fashions and algorithms to energy robots.
