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Well, it looks like we won’t have to wait for a legal discovery process to uncover what hardware device OpenAI is working on. In what feels awfully like a coordinated leak, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg got a lot of details about what is easiest to describe as an AI-driven smart speaker, but that clearly OpenAI won’t frame that way:
None of this is particularly surprising – in fact, it all sounds largely in-line with the product I guessed OpenAI was building immediately after they announced the acquisition of io, Jony Ive’s startup. While many assumed the two companies would team up to focus on building an AI wearable device – which were all the rage at the time, led by the ill-fated (and Sam Altman-backed) Humane AI Pin – my guess was, well, more or less what it sounds like they’re gearing up to launch.
Back in May 2025, in a piece entitled ‘The Anti iPhone’, I wrote:
By October of that year, as some details started to trickle out about the direction OpenAI/io was taking, the focus seemed more clear. “A small, screen-less digital companion for you life,” I wrote at the time. Another leak in February 2026 nudged us even further in the direction of a smart speaker-like device.
Back to Gurman’s report today:
The key to this device, of course, will be voice. That is, voice-based AI. The writing has been on the wall there since at least the launch of GPT-4o, but if the intent was to be more than simply a better Alexa or HomePod, it felt like a couple more breakthroughs were needed. And what do you know, with the launch of GPT-Live… here we are! As I wrote just last week (which feels like months ago in OpenAI-land):
Inevitable, indeed. Back to Gurman:
That’s a bingo.
But wait, what’s that in the room next to this new OpenAI device? It’s an elephant! In the form of a lawsuit just filed by Apple against OpenAI. While perhaps not explicitly about this device, it’s obviously going to get roped in here. Because what underpins the entire thing is the notion of OpenAI poaching people from Apple and allegedly stealing their IP and trade secrets to bolster OpenAI’s fledgling hardware efforts. To quote Apple, “As a natural result, OpenAI’s nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets.”
To hear OpenAI – sorry, Gurman’s sources – tell it:
While this would-be device obviously doesn’t sound like an iPhone and again, OpenAI is going to frame this very differently than a smart speaker such as the aforementioned HomePod, lawsuit aside, that general space now feels like yesterday’s technology because of the previous success of Alexa and the like – still, there are likely going to be some overlaps. The question will be just how many and if any of them crossed the chasm in the alleged information taken from Apple.
Of course, that may also take years to uncover, depending on if/when this actually goes to trial. And that’s why Apple is seeking injunctions to stop OpenAI from using their IP right now. So even these next few months are going to be interesting…
And wait, while everyone seems to be focused in on the possibility that OpenAI would infringe Apple’s known products, what if this is all really about the unknown/unreleased ones? Certainly the lawsuit makes it clear that the “show and tell” of prototypes was key – i.e. they weren’t bringing iPhones to those meetings (allegedly).
In fact, reading today’s report, I’m reminded of not just the tabletop/mounted ‘FacePod‘/’HomePad‘ that has been rumored for years – and likely delayed by Apple’s AI woes – but other potential products that Apple’s own published research papers have uncovered. Even better, a video.
In February 2025, I wrote about “Apple’s Elegantly Expressive Pixar Lamp“:
Forget the HomePod, or even ‘HomePad’ (again, this OpenAI device has no screen), this is the device that immediately jumped to my mind. It’s a simple robot meant to bring joy and delight into a home by way of expressive actions driven by AI. Apple, of course, didn’t have the voice chops to make it work at the time, but now, thanks to Google, they probably do! So I can’t help but wonder how much overlap there is between whatever OpenAI is trying to do with this first device and what Apple is doing within their labs… That, I imagine, may be the key to all of this.
At the same time, as I noted the other day, even if OpenAI is worried about any of this – and again, they’re telegraphing that they’re not – they may feel the need to push forward anyway. This hardware initiative is that important to the future of the company. And I suspect that Ive’s team will have built something super compelling:
A cute tabletop robot that does your email for you? Sign me up.
