After leaving Apple as its revolutionary designer, Jony Ive, went silent after the first collaboration meeting with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.
Introduced by Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, Sam Altman, and Jony Ive sparked a revolutionary conversation last year in the field of Artificial Intelligence. However, both of them went silent for over a year without any open statement on the collaboration. A recent major New York Times profile revealed the high potential of Sam Altman joining hands with Jony Ive to design and build a breakthrough AI hardware.
The project details, including name, product, and timelines, will remain hidden until the right time. However, the recent profile unveiled multiple surface-level details that can help us get a vague perspective. The venture is in the making and will function as one of the top AI startups employing the best from the field. This is the project Ive has been working on since he left Apple.
Jony Ive’s firm, LoveForm, will lead the project's design, as stated in the online profile, “A product that uses AI to create a computing experience that is less socially disruptive than the iPhone.” The core of the message indicates that the product will not appeal to the general masses as Apple did during its Apple Intelligence launch events. It will rather place itself in an infrastructural position to build new AI capabilities.
The AI startup employs just ten members now, including Tang Tan and Evans Hankey, Ive’s former teammates, while working on the iPhone design. Ive is also a reported investor in the AI startup, contributing to his personal wealth repository.
The AI startup reportedly will raise nearly $1 billion by the end of this year from the Emerson Collective, Laurene Powell Jobs’ company. Last year, the OpenAI and LoveForm collaborative AI startup reportedly raised $1 billion from Masayoshi Son, CEO of Softbank. Jony made no comments regarding the last year’s reported investment activity.
According to Sam Altman’s vision in the hardware aspect of AI, he aims to build hardware that allows faster, higher, and deeper processing of AI functions than the existing Software-led infrastructures. During the discussion last year with Ive, Sam Altman clearly mentioned willingness to invest in a hardware setup that takes AI computing to the next level. He aims to run not only AI Apps on highly specialized AI software but also a physical system that facilitates on-device functions. This venture seems to be it, but the details will surface sometime later this year.
