OpenAI buys Glass Imaging for over $300 million

OpenAI's acquisition of Glass Imaging adds a camera-focused team to a company better known for software. Glass Imaging was founded in 2019 by Ziv Attar and Tom Bishop, former Apple engineers who previously led the team behind Apple's Portrait Mode. That background directly informs its work: using AI to overcome the physical size constraints of smartphone cameras. Rather than editing photos after they are taken, the company uses neural networks to learn about individual camera systems — like the different cameras on various smartphone models — to produce better images from the moment the shutter clicks.

The deal, reported by The Wall Street Journal at over $300 million, follows a prior hardware-related move. In 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and designer Jony Ive revealed they had been working together on a device startup called io, when OpenAI bought Ive's company for $6.5 billion. OpenAI has not confirmed the Glass Imaging acquisition, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The ChatGPT maker is rumored to be working on its own hardware, like smartphones, earbuds, and AI companion devices.

If the reported deal is confirmed, it may signal that OpenAI is assembling camera and imaging expertise for hardware it has not yet announced. The stakes hinge on whether that rumored hardware materializes and whether Glass Imaging's camera-system learning translates from smartphones to whatever form factor OpenAI pursues.