Former Apple design chief Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are creating a mystery device for ChatGPT, sparking speculation, memes, and jokes.

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

Here's everything we know so far about the mysterious upcoming AI device from the iPhone designer and creator of 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.

OpenAI said it was buying IO, a start-up founded by Mr. Ive, the designer of the iPhone, to usher in a new era of artificial intelligence hardware.

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

Here’s what we know: it’s probably not smart glasses. Beyond that, we don’t know much about what Jony Ive and OpenAI are building through their newly combined company io, except that it’s some kind of AI super-gadget. But after a couple of years of watching the industry try and shove AI into every form factor you can imagine, we have some guesses.

Did Sam Altman just figure out what AI's been missing? Or did he get locked into the very thinking he's spent his career avoiding?