Jony Ive is moving deeper into artificial intelligence hardware through a new startup connected to OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman. The effort is still undefined in public, but the ambition attached to it is clear: build an AI device that changes the computing experience without repeating the social costs associated with the iPhone.
A new AI device company is taking shape
Ive, described in the source article as the legendary designer who left his full-time role at Apple five years ago, has confirmed that he is working on the startup with OpenAI and Sam Altman. The collaboration had first been reported last year, and Ive acknowledged it in a New York Times profile about his work since leaving Apple.
The company does not appear to have a public name yet. If it does, Ive is not sharing it. What is known is that the project grew out of dinners with Altman last year, suggesting the company began not with a conventional product announcement, but with a broader conversation about what computing might become as A.I. moves into everyday devices.
That makes the startup notable even before a product exists. The combination of Ive, OpenAI and Altman brings together design, artificial intelligence and a major question facing consumer technology: what should a new computing device feel like when A.I. is central to the experience?
LoveFrom is leading the design effort
Ive’s firm LoveFrom is leading the design work. According to the profile described in the source, the goal is to build "a product that uses A.I. to create a computing experience that is less socially disruptive than the iPhone."
That phrase is doing a lot of work. It does not describe a specific form factor, interface or release plan. Instead, it frames the project around a problem: powerful computing has become deeply embedded in daily life, but the experience can also interrupt attention, relationships and public space.
The startup’s premise, based on the facts available, is not simply that A.I. can be added to another device. It is that A.I. might support a different relationship between people and computers. For a designer like Ive, that puts the focus not only on what the product can do, but on how it sits in human behavior.
Still, the public description remains intentionally broad. There is no confirmed device category, no announced launch window and no product name. The company is best understood as an early-stage hardware and A.I. effort with a sharply stated design ambition, rather than as a product ready for consumers.
Product specifics remain undecided
Industrial designer Marc Newson, who is working with Ive, said the product specifics and release timing have not been decided. That matters because it limits what can responsibly be concluded about the startup.
At this stage, the facts support only a few concrete points:
- Jony Ive is working with OpenAI and Sam Altman on a new startup.
- The collaboration emerged from dinners with Altman last year.
- LoveFrom is leading the design.
- Marc Newson is also working with Ive.
- The product details and timing have not been finalized.
- The company is fundraising.
Those limits are important. The phrase AI device can suggest many possibilities, but the source does not identify what the hardware will be, how it will work, or whether it will compete directly with any existing device. The article also does not say when consumers might see it.
For now, the startup is better viewed through its stated direction than through specifications. The emphasis is on a computing experience shaped around A.I. and designed to be less socially disruptive than the iPhone.
Fundraising shows the scale of ambition
Even with the product still vague, the company is already raising money. Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective and Ive himself are contributing, according to the source article.
The company sounds as though it is aiming to raise up to $1 billion by the end of the year. That figure signals a large effort, even though the public details remain thin. Hardware development, design, A.I. integration and launch planning can require substantial resources, and the fundraising target points to a project being built with major scale in mind.
The involvement of Emerson Collective and Ive’s own contribution also makes the startup more than a loose design experiment. It is being organized as a company with financing behind it, even while its product identity remains private.
Why the project matters now
The reason this startup is drawing attention is not just the names attached to it. It is the question it raises about what comes after the smartphone-centered model of computing.
The source article does not claim that Ive and OpenAI have solved that question. It says the company wants to create a product using A.I. that offers a less socially disruptive computing experience than the iPhone. That is a design challenge, a technology challenge and a behavioral challenge at the same time.
For readers watching the future of A.I. hardware, the most important point is patience. The startup exists, the collaboration is confirmed, the design effort is being led by LoveFrom, and fundraising is underway. But the product, the release timing and even the name remain undisclosed.
What can be said is that Ive, OpenAI, Sam Altman and Marc Newson are working on an AI device company built around a clear idea: A.I. should not simply make computing more powerful. It should help make the experience less disruptive.