Key Points:
- OpenAI has a team of 200 employees building new AI gadgets.
- The company plans to sell the speaker for $200 to $300.
- Smart glasses are also in development for a 2028 release.
- The project follows the $6.5 billion purchase of Jony Ive’s startup.
OpenAI is making a major push into the physical world. The company behind ChatGPT has put together a team of more than 200 people to design a new family of hardware products. According to recent reports, this lineup will feature a smart speaker, a smart lamp, and high-tech glasses.
The smart speaker will hit the market first. Sources say OpenAI plans to price the device between $200 and $300. However, eager customers will have to wait a while. The company does not expect to ship the speaker until February 2027 at the earliest.
This upcoming speaker will do much more than just play music or answer basic questions. It will include a built-in camera that watches its surroundings. This visual input allows the artificial intelligence to gather real-time context. The device can recognize faces and monitor what users do at home, allowing it to offer proactive advice and interact naturally without needing a screen.
Following the speaker, OpenAI wants to release its own smart glasses. The development timeline for this wearable tech is much longer. The company hopes to finalize the design and begin mass production of the glasses by 2028.
To make these ambitious hardware dreams come true, OpenAI spent heavily. The tech giant recently bought io Products, a startup founded by famous former Apple designer Jony Ive, for a massive $6.5 billion. Ive and his team now lead the creative vision for these physical AI devices.
OpenAI faces fierce competition in this growing hardware market. Tech rival Meta already enjoys massive success with its Ray-Ban smart glasses. Those popular frames let people snap photos, record videos, and stream live content on the go.
Meanwhile, industry heavyweights like Apple and Google refuse to stay quiet. Both companies are actively testing their own augmented reality wearables. By creating its own physical gadgets, OpenAI hopes to control exactly how people experience its software. They want to connect users directly to ChatGPT without relying entirely on smartphones made by their biggest rivals.
