Openai Officially acquired startup IO Products, founded by Johni Eve – the legendary designer of the first iPhone – for $ 6.5 billion. As part of the transaction, Iv himself becomes the creative director of Openai and will lead the creation of new devices adapted to the realities of generative artificial intelligence. The transaction takes place in the form of shares and was estimated on the basis of the market value of Openai at $ 300 billion. Before that, Openai already had 23% package in the company.
Iv has been cooperating with Openai through its Lovefrom studio for two years, developing physical devices that can bring interaction from AI to a new level. The problem is that other startups in this area did not go so smoothly. Companies like Humane AI and Rabbit tried their hand at creating devices for generative AI, but met problems – from overheating and poor autonomy to banal uselessness against the background of smartphones.
Humane AI, founded by former Apple employees, tried to bring AI PIN to the market, but it failed. Due to criticism of performance and high price, the project quickly came to naught. As a result, HP redeemed its development, including the Cosmos platform and the engineering team, for $ 116 million – and stopped release AI PIN.
rabbit, on the contrary, was able to sell more than 100 thousand R1 devices, but in terms of functionality they are still inferior to ordinary smartphones. Attempts to re-make a mobile platform are faced with severe reality: resource-intensive AI models, high competition and high market expectations.
Now Openai, inspired by the designer philosophy of Johnny Aiva, seeks to create something fundamentally new. The Director General of OpenAi Sam Altman hinted that the team already has a prototype of the device and called it “the coolest technological thing that the world has ever seen.” So far, there are no details about this product, but the company’s mood is transparent – to refuse dependence on iOS and Android, creating your own platform.
The Openai approach resembles the META*development strategy, the developing headset Quest and the Ray-Ban smart glasses. Analysts believe that the purpose of Openai is to control the next hardware ecosystem so as not to be attached to the Apple or Google ecosystems.
The news hit Apple: the company’s shares fell by 2%. Many observers associate this with the fact that Apple integrates smart functions too slowly and lags behind the Android competing, already using AI.
Against the backdrop of failures of other ambitious attempts to restart “smart devices” from scratch, the Openai and Johni Aiva bet on a unique approach may be a new breakthrough or another failure in the race for the former-faculty of the AP.
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