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Apple’s former designer Jony Ive and OpenAI’s CEO are reportedly collaborating on a new AI product built by Sam Altman. According to a profile by The New York Times, the pair met for dinner several times “before agreeing to build a product,” with Ive’s company, LoveFrom, leading the design.
The report claims that it could raise up to $1 billion in start-up funding by the end of the year from tech investors. The project has around 10 employees, however, it includes the likes of Tang Tan, who oversaw iPhone product development, and Evans Hankey, who succeeded Ive in leading design at Apple. The startup’s co-founder includes Steve Jobs’s widow, Laurene Powell Jobs.
The team is reportedly now working from a 32,000-square-foot office building in San Francisco, which is part of a $90 million stretch of real estate that Ive has acquired on a single city block.
ReadWrite wrote about the potential partnership in April after the duo was understood to be sourcing funding for a new “artificial intelligence-powered personal device”. A few of the investors who were in talks include previous OpenAI investor Thrive Capital, SoftBank CEO and super-investor Masayoshi Son, and venture capital firm Emerson Collective.
What AI device could Ives and Altman be working on?
While there are very few details regarding the product itself, Ive and Altman reportedly talked about how generative AI “made it possible to create a new computing device because the technology could do more for users than traditional software.”
They also discussed the value of AI being able to “summarize and prioritize messages, identify and name objects like plants and eventually field complex requests like booking travel.”
The project is said to be being developed in secret. All we know is that it will offer a computing experience “less socially disruptive than the iPhone.” This suggests it could be a form of ‘hidden technology’ that works in the background without the need for constant interaction. For example, ReadWrite reported about Humane Inc releasing an AI pin, even though it faced high return rates.
LoveFrom cofounder Marc Newson told the Times what the product would be and when it would be released were still being determined.
Featured image: Gary Cohen via Flickr / TechCrunch
