OpenAI to buy iPhone designer Jony Ive's AI devices startup

OpenAI said it will buy Jony Ive’s AI devices startup io in an all-equity deal for $6.4 billion, including its current stake in the company, according to a report by the Financial Times.

Ive and the his creative collective Loveform started collaborating with OpenAI and Sam Altman two years ago, the ChatGPT maker said in a statement. The startup io was created to one year ago to develop, engineer and manufacture a new family of products.

This family of products will allow people to use AI "to create all sorts of wonderful things", Altman said in a video message. The clip indicates that io is ready with the prototype of its first product, which has also won Altman's approval.

Sam & Jony introduce io pic.twitter.com/ej5K59kJq3

— OpenAI (@OpenAI) May 21, 2025

The AI major stated that io will merging with OpenAI, while Ive and LoveFrom will take on "deep creative and design responsibilities across OpenAI and io," OpenAI said.

Ive is popular for designing iconic Apple products including the iPod, iPad, iPhone and MacBook Pro. His Loveform has worked with Ferrari and Airbnb in the past.

This is OpenAI's largest acquisition so far and comes days after it agreed to buy Windsurf, an artificial intelligence-assisted coding tool, for about $3 billion. This deal is in the backdrop of the rising trend of AI-backed coding assistants. OpenAI itself launched the research preview of its own cloud-based coding assistant called Codex last Friday.

Meanwhile, the company is facing mounting challenges in AI from Google, Anthropic and Elon Musk's xAI. During the Google I/O 2025, the internet major unleashed another wave of artificial intelligence technology to accelerate a year-long makeover of its search engine, including an AI Mode for the US market.

Also Read: Key takeaways from Google I/O 2025: Gemini, Search in focus

OpenAI recently finalised a $40 billion financing led by SoftBank Group Corp., which values the company at $300 billion.

The AI company is also working restructuring itself into a public benefit corporation, scrapping the idea to transform into a for-profit entity. It is renegotiating a multibillion-dollar deal with Microsoft to allow the ChatGPT maker an IPO in the future, while protecting the software giant's access to cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) models.


( Originally published on May 21, 2025 )