OpenAI acquires Jony Ive's hardware startup; Apple sues over trade secrets

In May 2025, Jony Ive and Sam Altman were featured in a viral video sipping espressos at a cafe in North Beach to announce OpenAI's acquisition of io Products, Ive's hardware startup. The deal, struck roughly one year before the article's writing, valued the company at $6.5 billion（約1兆円）. Ive, the legendary designer of Apple's iPhone and one of the world's most famous product designers, was being brought in to help OpenAI reinvent hardware for the AI age—a bet that the maker of ChatGPT could unseat Apple itself.

The device under development is described by Bloomberg sources as a home-speaker-like device that functions as an active AI companion, complete with moving mechanical parts designed to mimic human behavior. OpenAI expects it to ship as early as next year. According to a source familiar with OpenAI's plans, the design of the initial hardware device has been finalized, while work on a broader family of AI devices is underway. Altman told an interviewer in November 2025 that early prototypes are "simple" and less distracting than a smartphone, with "incredible contextual awareness of your whole life."

The organizational structure reflects the scale of the ambition. The io team, now integrated into OpenAI as the hardware group, has grown to more than 400 employees and works out of the original io building in Jackson Square, across town from OpenAI's main San Francisco headquarters in Mission Bay. Ive, while not a technical employee, spearheads the project and continues to lead his design firm LoveFrom, which provides design services and sets the aesthetic for the device family. LoveFrom's staff of 50 to 60 employees in San Francisco includes designers, color specialists, and sculptors who physically build products from scratch. The structure brings together top talent in mechanical engineering and industrial design but also risks clashing visions and inefficiencies across organizations.

However, before any product has reached consumers, Apple filed a scorched-earth lawsuit that threatens to derail the effort. The complaint alleges that more than 400 former Apple employees now working at OpenAI unlawfully took confidential data, including information about Apple's supply chain vendors and contractors, details about unreleased hardware products, and technical specifications. The lawsuit names Tang Tan, OpenAI's chief hardware officer and a former Apple vice president, and Chang Liu, another former Apple employee now at OpenAI, as well as io and OpenAI itself. Ive is not named in the suit. OpenAI responded in a statement that it is not aware of evidence supporting Apple's allegations and has no interest in other companies' trade secrets, adding that it "believes in fair competition and allowing people the freedom to work wherever they choose."

Legal experts expect the lawsuit to substantially complicate but not necessarily kill the project. Saurabh Vishnubhakat, an intellectual property law professor at Cardozo School of Law, told Fortune that the suit is more likely to "slow, compartmentalize, and reshape OpenAI's hardware project" than destroy it outright. "The risk is that OpenAI ends up having to quarantine files or employees, redo engineering work, abandon a manufacturing process, or replace a supplier," he said. Success will also depend on OpenAI overcoming broader consumer skepticism. Hardware devices that record in the home pose significant privacy risks, and Elena Wagenmans, co-founder and CEO of TAYA, an AI-powered necklace maker, noted that "people wonder if an AI device is recording them or not, and it's really uncomfortable to have to ask that question." Additionally, Altman's controversial reputation—he was briefly fired in 2023 for not being "consistently candid" with OpenAI's board, and a New Yorker article this year raised questions about his trustworthiness—may weigh on consumer confidence. As one analyst noted, "A beautiful object does not solve a trust deficit."

OpenAI's $6.5 billion（約1兆円） acquisition of io Products marks a strategic shift for the AI company as it faces intensifying competition in large language models. With the market no longer dominated by ChatGPT, hardware represents a way to embed OpenAI's AI directly into consumers' homes and everyday lives—creating what the company hopes will be an irreplaceable interface to its models. Jony Ive, who spent nearly 15 years designing iconic Apple products like the iPhone alongside Steve Jobs, brings unparalleled prestige and design discipline to the effort. However, the hardware venture faces multiple headwinds. Apple's lawsuit against OpenAI—alleging that more than 400 former Apple employees at OpenAI unlawfully took confidential supply-chain and product data—threatens to introduce delays, compartmentalization, and rework. Legal experts suggest the litigation is more likely to slow and reshape the project than kill it, but the cost in time and engineering focus could be substantial.

The broader context for AI hardware is one of high-profile failures and unproven markets. Devices like the Rabbit r1 and Humane AI Pin, despite raising hundreds of millions in venture funding, flopped spectacularly upon release. Consumers remain skeptical about privacy—especially devices that record in the home—and Altman's own reputation for trustworthiness, dented by his brief 2023 firing and questions raised in a recent New Yorker article, may further undermine consumer confidence. Success will ultimately hinge on whether Ive's design discipline and Altman's access to OpenAI's AI capabilities can create a product compelling and trustworthy enough to justify putting an always-listening device in the home.

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