OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and former Apple designer Jony Ive have been working on a mysterious piece of OpenAI hardware, but they appear to have reached a design decision. The two discussed the process of developing a product with Laurene Powell Jobs at Emerson Collective’s 2025 Demo Day. Ive said he expects to reveal the device in two years or less.

"Finally, we have the first prototypes," Altman said in a video posted by Emerson Collective, which invests in entrepreneurs. "I can't believe how jaw-droppingly good the work is and how exciting it is."

In May, OpenAI acquired Ive's startup, called io, for $6.4 billion in equity and announced that it would make new AI devices. Ive is leading design on the new hardware project, but the two companies have kept a low profile when it comes to details about the product or project.

Altman said: “We came to Jony and his team and said: We have this ridiculous new piece of technology — this huge thing — where computers are smart now. They can think, they can understand in ways they couldn’t before. And we don’t know what that means. But we know we are all living with the constraints of the same kind of computer we have been using for a long time. And that feels totally wrong and limiting. We think the world deserves better stuff… what it means to have a computer that was built around this new affordance that didn’t exist before. We have the first prototypes.”

Ive is known for his meticulous process when it comes to design, something evident in the projects he worked on at Apple, such as the iPhone, Apple Watch and iMac.

“In large companies, they value predictability; leaders get really uncomfortable with ambiguity. And the creative process is unpredictable,” said Ive.

The two did not discuss what exactly OpenAI is building, but said the company is targeting a calmer “vibe” with its hardware compared with smartphones.

Ive said: “If you have a predetermined goal, that just leaves me feeling terribly disappointed and dead. If you do, you’ve got no clue about all the things you’ve just missed. You don’t even know that you’ve missed them if you are so focused on an angle. The foundation for any creative practice is this sort of insatiable curiosity. It’s one of those things that helped Sam and me to click. I think we are more defined by this desire to learn and explore than to be right.”