When OpenAI bought Jony Ive's hardware startup for $6.5 billion
The May 2025 deal put the designer of the iPhone in charge of design at the company behind ChatGPT, and set a 2026 target for a device.
Kivorent News desk, published , 1 min read
This is a look back at an event from . We wrote it on November 11, 2026, from the sources listed at the end.
What to know
- OpenAI announced on May 21, 2025, that it would buy io Products in an all-stock deal reported at $6.5 billion.
- OpenAI already owned 23% of io and paid about $5 billion in shares for the rest, SiliconANGLE reported.
- About 55 hardware engineers and designers joined OpenAI, and Ive took on design responsibility across the company.
For its first years, OpenAI's products lived inside other companies' hardware. On May 21, 2025, it moved to change that by buying io Products, a consumer electronics startup led by Jony Ive, the former Apple design chief.
The deal
SiliconANGLE reported the price at $6.5 billion, paid entirely in stock. OpenAI already held 23% of io from an earlier investment, so it paid about $5 billion in shares for the remaining 77%.
io had been founded only the year before. Its team of about 55 engineers, scientists and product developers moved to OpenAI. Ive, who spent nearly 30 years at Apple before leaving in 2019, took on creative and design responsibility across OpenAI. His design studio, LoveFrom, was reported to be part of the arrangement, with OpenAI becoming one of its clients.
What they said they would build
No product was shown. Reports at the time described a device without a screen, built around an AI assistant, with the first hardware due in 2026. The stated aim was to give people a way to use AI that did not run through a phone.
Why it mattered
The purchase was a bet that the next way of using AI would be a new kind of device, and that the company making the model should also make the hardware. It also put OpenAI in more direct competition with Apple, whose products Ive had defined.
It came at a price that stood out even in a year of large AI deals: more than $100 million per employee for a company with no product on sale.
For how the assistants inside such devices decide what to do, see what an AI agent is.
Sources
- OpenAI acquires Jony Ive's io Products in $6.5B stock deal, SiliconANGLE, May 21, 2025
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