TheChek News Flow

The Takeaway

OpenAI has more than 200 people working on a family of AI-powered devices that will include a smart speaker and possibly smart glasses and a smart lamp, according to a person with knowledge of the plans. New details are starting to emerge about the group and its development strategy.

The smart speaker—the first device OpenAI will release—is likely to be priced between $200 and $300, according to two people with knowledge of it. The speaker will have a camera, enabling it to take in information about its users and their surroundings, such as items on a nearby table or conversations people are having in the vicinity, according to one of the people. It will also allow people to buy things by identifying them with a facial recognition feature similar to Apple’s Face ID, the people said.

While some OpenAI executives have suggested the company will tease its first device later this year, Peter Welinder, a vice president and general manager who’s leading the device team at OpenAI, wrote in a court filing earlier this month that the company doesn’t expect the first device to ship to customers until next February at the earliest. Other devices, such as smart glasses, likely won’t be ready for mass production until 2028, according to a person involved in AI glasses development.

While the devices team has prepared prototypes for devices such as the smart lamp, it’s unclear whether they will be released. The company’s devices are still early and details around their design and release schedule could change. A spokesperson from OpenAI declined to comment.

OpenAI will be plunging into an increasingly crowded hardware market. Apple is reportedly planning a host of AI devices, including an AI wearable pin and AirPods with enhanced sensors, while Meta Platforms and Google are either already selling or planning to sell smart glasses with AI capabilities.

During a presentation last summer, leaders from the device team told employees the device will be able to observe users through video and nudge them toward actions it believes will help them achieve their goals, said a person who attended the presentation. You could imagine the device observing its user staying up late the night before a big meeting and suggesting that they go to bed, for example.

Competition from other tech firms is putting pressure on the devices team, formed nine months ago after OpenAI acquired Io Products, the device startup started by CEO Sam Altman and former Apple design chief Jony Ive. That startup had been discussing potential devices since at least September 2023.

Despite that deal, Ive’s involvement with OpenAI is complicated. He still runs his design firm, LoveFrom, as an entity independent of OpenAI, even though it is LoveFrom that is in charge of coming up with potential OpenAI device designs. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s internal devices team is in charge of making the hardware and the software powering it, as well as understanding how consumers will use the device.

That division of responsibilities has sparked tensions. Some OpenAI staffers have complained that LoveFrom has been slow to revise its designs and shares little about its process of coming up with new ones, even with others working on devices within OpenAI, two people with knowledge of the situation said. That secrecy and meticulous focus on design is par for the course for Apple, where a number of device staffers and leaders came from. Apple has strict rules around which employees are allowed to know about various projects.

In keeping with that approach, OpenAI’s devices team itself is separate from the rest of OpenAI. While OpenAI’s main office is in Mission Bay, the devices team works out of a downtown San Francisco office in the Jackson Square neighborhood, not far from LoveFrom’s office.

Ive makes the final call on most design choices, though he’s only in the downtown San Francisco office about once a week or so. Despite that, the device team still feels his presence very strongly, and staffers are known to refer to what they believe he would want frequently during conversations.

While the devices team is led by Welinder, who previously helmed OpenAI’s new product explorations team, other leaders joined OpenAI through its Io acquisition. Those include Apple veterans and Io co-founders Tang Tan, now OpenAI’s hardware lead; Evans Hankey, who previously led industrial design at Apple and is now leading the same effort at OpenAI; and Scott Cannon, who leads supply chain for OpenAI’s device. Adam Cue, son of longtime Apple services chief Eddy Cue, joined OpenAI through the Io deal and is now developing the software that will power OpenAI’s future devices.

Several leads for the device previously hailed from other parts of OpenAI. Ben Newhouse is a product research lead who’s working to rewrite OpenAI’s infrastructure—largely written for text-based AI—for audio AI, as the company revamps its audio models for its devices. Houda Nait El Barj, a researcher who previously worked on the team managing the relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft, leads experience research on how consumers will use OpenAI’s future devices. Atty Eleti, meanwhile, leads engineering work related to privacy for the devices.