The all-stock deal with OpenAI values Ive’s AI hardware startup io at $6.5 billion—and is set to be a major windfall for the man who designed the iPhone.

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.

More details are trickling out about Jony Ive and Sam Altman’s new AI device. In a post on Thursday, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says his research indicates that the device could be larger than Humane’s AI pin, but with a “form factor as compact and elegant as an iPod Shuffle.”

Jony Ive, the famed designer who joined Steve Jobs to develop Apple’s most popular products, will now curate new devices for OpenAI after his startup was acquired by Sam Altman’s firm earlier this week,

OpenAI has recruited Jony Ive, the designer behind Apple’s iPhone, to lead a new hardware project for the artificial intelligence company that makes ChatGPT.

According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, OpenAI and Jony Ive are planning a neck-worn AI device with a similar form factor to the iPod Shuffle.

I really hope OpenAI's new hardware doesn't make me talk to myself in public.

OpenAI said on Wednesday that it’s buying Jony Ive’s AI devices startup io for about $6.4 billion in an all-equity deal that includes its current stake in the company.

OpenAI has fully acquired Io, a joint venture it cocreated last year with Jony Ive, the famed British designer behind the sleek industrial aesthetic that defined the iPhone and more than two decades of Apple products.