Apple designer Sir Jony Ive joins OpenAI

Legendary British designer Sir Jony Ive, who helped create the Apple iPhone, is becoming a member of forces with OpenAI, as the factitious intelligence (AI) agency units its sights on growing {hardware}.

OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, will purchase a start-up based by Sir Jony, who will “assume deep design and artistic obligations” throughout the corporate, the 2 companies mentioned in an announcement.

Open AI boss Sam Altman mentioned the objective was to create a “household of units” made particularly with AI in thoughts.

The deal comes because the tech business has been on the lookout for its subsequent {hardware} hit after the iPhone and takes explicit purpose at Apple, which some say has been shifting too slowly to include AI into its units.

“I feel we’ve got the chance right here to form of utterly re-imagine what it means to make use of a pc,” Mr Altman mentioned in video.

Shares in Apple fell greater than 2% after the announcement.

Sir Jony labored for Apple for greater than 30 years, serving to to revive the corporate with pathbreaking merchandise together with the iPhone and iPod.

He left the agency in 2019 to discovered his personal firm, LoveFrom, which has labored with corporations equivalent to Airbnb and Moncler.

The concept for io, which Sir Jony based final 12 months, grew out of a number of years of quiet collaboration between the 2 corporations, in line with the announcement.

“It grew to become clear that our ambitions to develop, engineer and manufacture a brand new household of merchandise demanded a completely new firm,” it mentioned.

OpenAI had a 23% stake within the startup previous to Wednesday’s announcement, in line with US media.

US media reported that the merger valued io at roughly $6.4bn (£4.7bn). LoveFrom will stay impartial.

Within the video saying the merger, Sir Jony mentioned he believed the world was on the “brink of a brand new era of know-how”.

OpenAI set off a wave of funding in AI in 2022 when it unveiled ChatGPT.

It has continued to push into new areas, equivalent to procuring and search, in a problem to established tech giants.

The foray into {hardware} comes as tech rivals equivalent to Meta, Google and Apple have additionally been investing in merchandise equivalent to headsets and glasses, seeing new alternative as a consequence of advances in AI.