Jony Ive confirms partnership with OpenAI on a new piece of AI hardware, despite market failures

In the past year, we’ve seen a slew of devices based around generative AI that were claimed to be “the next big thing.” The Humane Ai Pin and the Rabbit R1 are two significant examples. However, both failed miserably for myriad reasons, with the most significant reason being people don’t seem to want dedicated hardware for AI services — they just want to use their smartphones.

Despite this, we’ve learned today that Jony Ive — the man most directly responsible for the designs of the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and more Apple products under Steve Jobs — is working with OpenAI’s Sam Altman on some sort of new AI-powered hardware. This was revealed in a profile on Ive in The New York Times.

Previously, we had heard rumors that Ive and OpenAI were working together on AI hardware that doesn’t look like a phone. It’s assumed that ChatGPT would power this device, considering the ties to OpenAI. However, that’s all we heard until today’s confirmation of the partnership.

According to the report, there are already 10 employees working on this project and Ive is looking to raise venture capital to support a new company that would create the product. Due to Ive’s and Altman’s respective pedigrees, it’s expected the company could raise $1 billion by the end of 2024.

Obviously, Ive is a tech industry legend, and Altman is on his way to being talked about in the same manner as Jobs, Gates, and other tech titans. However, one can’t help but think that it will take lightning in a bottle to tear people away from a smartphone and use AI-powered hardware instead. Because if the hardware can’t replace the smartphone, then people will just continue to use the smartphone.

Humane couldn’t do it, Rabbit couldn’t do it, so time will tell if Ive and Altman can do it.