OpenAI is acquiring Jony Ive and Sam Altman's startup, io, which will lead creative and design work for OpenAI.

OpenAI has recruited Jony Ive, the designer behind Apple’s iPhone, to lead a new hardware project for the artificial intelligence company that makes ChatGPT.

Altman and Ive announced OpenAI’s acquisition of Ive’s io in a statement Wednesday, with the deal valued at roughly $6.5 billion after OpenAI acquired 23% of io in a partnership deal in 2024.

Jony Ive's career was mainly at Apple, designing products like the iPhone and Mac. Now he'll work at OpenAI, which bought his AI device startup io.

OpenAI forms a new hardware division with the io team, led by Jony Ive, to develop AI-native devices, possibly launching a voice-first product as early as 2026.

Hours after Sam Altman and Jony Ive announced on Wednesday that OpenAI was buying Ive’s company, io, in an all-stock transaction valued at $6.5 billion, Investors were happy about the hefty returns they got from the sale of io to OpenAI.

With Ive leading design, OpenAI aims to pair the tech behind its ChatGPT chatbot with product design expertise that made the iPhone a bestseller.

Jony Ive, the famed designer behind iconic Apple products, will join OpenAI to create devices with generative artificial intelligence capability.

OpenAI is buying io, a hardware company founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive and several other former engineers from his time there, including Scott Cannon, Evans Hankey, and Tang Tan.

Jony Ive and Sam Altman are teaming up to make AI hardware.They aren't giving too many clues about what it would be like, but probably screen-free, and not a phone.Please, I beg you, Jony and Sam: Do not make me talk to a device in public.