, the veteran former Apple design chief credited with shaping the company’s product design, is joining ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
OpenAI will merge with Ive’s tech company,
io, according to a joint announcement from Ive and OpenAI CEO
Sam Altman.Ive and his team will take over design at OpenAI as part of an acquisition of his startup named "IO" valued at $6.5 billion. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said in the video that a prototype Ive shared with him "is the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen."
Sam Altman said he was "thrilled" to be partnering with the man he called the "greatest designer in the world". Jony Ive who had designed the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad - will "assume deep design and creative responsibilities" across the company, the two firms said in announcement, BBC reported.
Donald Trump's tax and spending mega-bill to cost millions of jobs in US, drive up your billsBritish-born Ive was an Apple employee from 1992 to 2019, during which time he oversaw the development of the brand's now legendary products, from the iMac and AirPods to the iPod, iPhone and Apple Watch.
Working closely with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, his designs revitalized Apple, making it the company with the world's third-largest market capitalization and a global standard for product design. John Ive worked for Apple for 27 years, helping to revive the company with groundbreaking products including the iPhone and iPod. He also designed the iMac in 1998 and the iPad in 2010.When Sir Jony left the company in 2019, Apple's CEO Tim Cook described him as "a singular figure in the design world and his role in Apple's revival cannot be overstated".
He departed to establish his own company, LoveFrom, which has collaborated with brands including Airbnb and Moncler. In the merger announcement, it was revealed that LoveFrom had been "quietly collaborating" with OpenAI for the past two years.
The concept for io, co-founded by Sir Jony last year alongside others, emerged from this ongoing partnership. "Our shared ambition to design, engineer, and produce a new generation of products made it clear that we needed to create an entirely new company," stated Sir Jony and Altman.
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Shares in Apple fell more than 2% following the news of his partnership with OpenAI.
Ive began collaborating with Altman two years ago and it "became clear that our ambitions to develop, engineer and manufacture a new family of products demanded an entirely new company," the pair said in a joint post.
"The products that we're using to deliver and connect us to unimaginable technology are decades old," Ive said. "So it's just common sense to at least think, surely there's something beyond these legacy products."
Ive and his separate design firm, LoveFrom, will take on design responsibilities for OpenAI and io, according to an announcement video on OpenAI’s website. They plan to announce their work next year, the video also said. The collaboration comes at a critical time for tech companies, which are racing to incorporate AI into their software and build new products fueled by the technology, from smart glasses to jewelry and new types of handheld devices.
OpenAI is widely regarded as a leader in the consumer AI space, with its ChatGPT chatbot catapulting artificial intelligence into the mainstream in late 2022. This surge in attention spurred both major tech companies and startups to incorporate AI into their products. Apple has since partnered with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT capabilities to its Siri virtual assistant.
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The announcement from Ive and Altman comes just one day after Google unveiled its plans to launch AI-powered smart glasses, which it sees as a potential successor to the personal computer. Meta has already seen success in this arena, selling over 2 million units of its Ray-Ban smart glasses.
However, not all AI-driven devices have resonated with consumers. Products like the Humane AI Pin, designed to enable seamless AI interaction, have struggled to gain traction in the market.
(With inputs from agencies)
