OpenAI's first gadget just leaked: an assistant "with personality" designed by Jony Ive
We finally know what OpenAI's first device looks like: a screenless tabletop assistant with moving parts that give it a "personality," designed with Jony Ive and expected in 2027. A leak that sheds new light on the massive poaching of Apple engineers, and on the lawsuit it triggered.
For a year, everyone has wondered what OpenAI was actually building with Jony Ive and its hundreds of former Apple engineers. We finally have the beginning of an answer. According to Bloomberg's reporting, OpenAI's first device is a screenless smart speaker, "roughly the size of a hockey puck, shaped like a doughnut," expected in 2027 at a price above $300.
1. An assistant that moves
On paper, the category is nothing new: Amazon has sold Echos for a decade, Google its Nests. But one detail changes everything: the device reportedly packs cameras, microphones, speakers, lights… and moving parts "designed to give it personality." In other words, not yet another cylindrical speaker waiting for its wake word, but an object that turns toward you, reacts, comes alive: as if someone had given ChatGPT a body. It's exactly the kind of design bet that carries the signature of Jony Ive, the father of the iMac, iPod and iPhone, whose involvement the reporting confirms.
A word of caution: these details come from "people familiar with the project," not an official announcement. OpenAI hasn't confirmed anything, and products can change a lot before launch.
2. A quick recap: how we got here
This leak doesn't come out of nowhere, and it retroactively explains eighteen months of very deliberate moves. In May 2025, OpenAI acquired io Products, Jony Ive's startup, for $6.4 billion. Sam Altman's company then methodically recruited from Apple: Tang Tan, a former iPhone executive who became OpenAI's Chief Hardware Officer, then this past June Paul Meade, the engineer who led Vision Pro hardware. In total, more than 400 Apple veterans now work at OpenAI.
Apple didn't take it lying down: in July, it sued OpenAI for trade secret theft, an explosive case we covered in detail in our article on the Apple vs OpenAI lawsuit. With this first device now described, Apple's nervousness makes a lot more sense: the team that built its most iconic products is building one for its most direct competitor.
3. The AI gadget graveyard awaits
Still, the road is littered with wrecks. Humane's AI Pin (founded, in an ironic twist, by other Apple alumni) was buried in less than a year, and the Rabbit R1 ended up in the broken-promises bin. AI hardware assistants have been the most overhyped, most disappointing category of the decade so far. OpenAI holds three cards the others didn't have: the ChatGPT brand (a claimed 800 million weekly users), Jony Ive, and near-unlimited resources. But it will face the same questions: what does this object do better than a smartphone, and will people accept a camera-equipped OpenAI device watching their living room?
The takeaway: OpenAI no longer wants to be an app on other companies' phones: it wants its own object in your living room, with a personality, by 2027. Between the Apple lawsuit, Jony Ive's pedigree, and the ghosts of Humane and Rabbit, this little hockey puck carries far more than its weight: it's the first real test of the post-smartphone era.
