OpenAI acquires io, an AI startup founded by design legend Jony Ive, for $6.4 billion in an all-equity transaction. The acquisition bolsters OpenAI’s push into new hardware. It builds on the collaboration the firm has had with Ive, a world-famous designer, to combine his design skills with the company’s expertise in artificial intelligence.
Ive, who is revered in the design world for creating signature Apple products such as the iPhone, iMac, and MacBook Air, will assume “overall responsibility for design at both OpenAI and io” with “creative and design leadership” at the two companies. Though io is now under the OpenAI tent, the release said Ive’s design company, LoveFrom, will continue to operate independently.
io was established just a year ago with Ive and former Apple pals Scott Cannon, Tang Tan, and Evans Hankey at the helm, and has been dedicated to building products which “inspire, empower, and enable.” This consolidation will make io’s team more accessible to OpenAI’s research, product, and engineering departments at their San Francisco headquarters. 
OpenAI’s chief, Sam Altman, referred to Jony Ive as the “best designer in the world“ in a public statement and touted the shift as key in the effort to bridge AI with actual things and have those things be a boon to millions of people on this planet.
It is OpenAI’s biggest purchase yet, after it paid $3 billion for AI-assisted coding tool Windsurf and bought analytics database company Rockset.
The news of the deal comes as OpenAI presses on with expanding its market opportunity in a competitive arena for generative AI. With giants like Google, Anthropic, and xAI pouring resources into new tech, OpenAI is buffing up its own custom hardware to stay ahead. And just this November, OpenAI hired Caitlin “CK” Kalinowski — who had been the head of Meta’s AR glasses division — to lead its robotics and consumer device projects.
For nearly 20 years, Jony Ive has played a role in shaping the design of technology as we know it, and this joint venture with OpenAI marks a new era in combining world-class design with the latest AI development. This landmark purchase marks the next era of AI devices and cements OpenAI as an industry frontrunner.
