OpenAI is purchasing iPhone dressmaker Jony Ive’s AI gadgets startup for $6.4 billion

OpenAI mentioned on Wednesday that it is purchasing Jony Ive’s AI gadgets startup io for approximately $6.4 billion in an all-equity deal that incorporates its present stake within the corporate.

Ive is taking up “deep creative and design responsibilities across OpenAI and io,” OpenAI mentioned in a commentary. The corporate mentioned that io is merging with OpenAI, whilst Ive and his “creative collective” referred to as LoveFrom will keep unbiased.

The acquire is through some distance OpenAI’s greatest and is derived weeks after the corporate agreed to shop for AI-assisted coding device Windsurf for $3 billion. Prior to that, OpenAI bought analytics database corporate Rockset for an undisclosed sum in 2024.

Ive introduced in 2019 that he was once leaving Apple, the place he was once the longtime leader design officer, to begin LoveFrom. The New York Times reported final 12 months that LoveFrom’s purchasers pay the company as much as $200 million a 12 months and that its designers on the time have been running on initiatives for Christie’s, Airbnb and Ferrarri.

Airbnb mentioned in 2020 that Ive was once consulting with the corporate on hiring and long run merchandise.

Ive is accountable for designing Apple‘s maximum iconic merchandise, together with the iPod, iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air. He additionally helped design Apple’s new Cupertino headquarters, referred to as Apple Park, a venture that started in 2004 with the campus formally opening in 2019.

News of the purchase comes as OpenAI, which was once lately valued at $300 billion in a investment spherical led through 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 continuously rolling out new merchandise. Part of staying forward in that race contains shoring up its {hardware} operations.

To additional its {hardware} ambitions, OpenAI employed the previous head of Meta’s Orion augmented fact glasses initiative in November to guide its robotics and shopper {hardware} efforts. Caitlin “CK” Kalinowski wrote in a statement on the time 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.”

Also overdue final 12 months, OpenAI invested in Physical Intelligence, a robotic startup primarily based in San Francisco, which raised $400 million at a $2.4 billion post-money valuation. Other buyers integrated Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Thrive Capital, Lux Capital and Bond Capital.

The startup makes a speciality of “bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world,” according to its web page, and it objectives to try this through growing large-scale synthetic intelligence fashions and algorithms to energy robots. 

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