OpenAI has acquired io, a hardware start-up founded by Jony Ive, in a $6.4 billion all-equity deal. Sam and Jony have been working together for the past two years to build a new family of products for the AGI era, which they define as systems that can surpass human cognitive abilities.
With io, they hope to shape the next generation of computing, which will go beyond smartphones and laptops. For the uninitiated, Jony Ive is the design maverick behind Apple’s iPhone, iPod, and MacBook. His design studio—LoveFrom— will remain independent, however, io will merge with OpenAI, and Jony and LoveFrom will assume deep design and creative responsibilities across OpenAI and io.
The 9-minute-long video announcing the new entity—io, has a candid interaction between Sam Altman and Jony Ive sharing a cup of coffee in the San Francisco Bay area. The two talk about the story behind their collaboration and why it’s becoming imperative to redefine the interface between humans and machines in a world increasingly shaped by generative AI.
According to the Economic Times, Altman’s move comes at a time when rival tech giants and all playing catch-up in the game. Google has succeeded in creating a vertically integrated AI company (with Pixel as the hardware). Microsoft and Amazon are working on the same thing as well. Whereas Apple is still lagging, especially in the hardware space, even though it recently partnered with OpenAI to upgrade Siri, its voice assistant.
OpenAI and io have not disclosed specific product plans, but according to reports, their work will be centred on building tools that support learning, creativity, and exploration of AI.
