Yup, Jony Ive is working on an AI device startup with OpenAI

Jony Ive, the legendary designer who left his full-time role at Apple five years ago, is working on a new startup with OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman.

The collaboration was first reported last year, and Ive confirmed it in a New York Times profile about what he’s been up to since leaving Apple.

If the startup has a name, Ive isn’t sharing it, but it apparently emerged from dinners with Altman last year where the pair discussed the potential of generative AI. With Ive’s firm LoveFrom leading the design, the profile describes the goal as building “a product that uses A.I. to create a computing experience that is less socially disruptive than the iPhone.”

So perhaps Ive and Altman can succeed where other AI device companies like Humane have struggled.

Industrial designer Marc Newson, who’s working with Ive, said the product specifics and release timing haven’t been decided. Despite that vagueness, the startup is fundraising, with Laurene Powell-Jobs’ Emerson Collective and Ive himself contributing. It sounds like the company is aiming to raise up to $1 billion by the end of the year.