OpenAI has assembled a team of 200 people working on its first consumer hardware products, with a smart speaker the closest to hitting the market, expected to ship between February and mid-2026 at a price point of $200 to $300.
The device, which will include a camera alongside audio capabilities, is designed to do something few smart speakers currently attempt: watch you. The speaker is built to observe users through video and nudge them toward decisions aligned with their goals, suggesting, for instance, that someone with a big presentation the next morning should go to bed.
That proactive approach is central to how OpenAI is differentiating the product. Company executives are not betting the device will win on design alone. The pitch is the software and the nature of the relationship it creates with users, positioning the AI less as a tool and more as a companion that anticipates needs rather than waiting to be asked.
The Jony Ive factor
The device's design is being handled by LoveFrom, the independent studio run by Jony Ive, the former Apple chief design officer who shaped the look of the iPhone, iMac, and nearly every iconic Apple product of the past three decades.
Ive joined the project through OpenAI's acquisition of the hardware startup IO in May, a deal worth close to $6.5 billion. Despite not being an official OpenAI employee, he holds final say and veto power over design decisions. His physical presence in the office is limited, but his influence is not. Employees regularly ask themselves what Ive would think before making design calls.
The cultural tension between the two groups is real. IO employees, shaped by Apple's famously secretive and methodical design culture, operate differently from OpenAI's faster-moving, more open engineering teams. Whether that friction accelerates or complicates the product's development is one of the more interesting questions hanging over the project.
Testing the market, not conquering it
The smart speaker is unlikely to be the device that reshapes the consumer electronics market overnight. The more useful comparison is Apple's Vision Pro: a proof of concept designed to generate data, reveal how people actually use the technology, and lay groundwork for future products.
OpenAI is also prototyping smart glasses and a smart lamp, suggesting the speaker is the first piece of a broader family of devices rather than a standalone bet. The second and third products, whenever they arrive, may be the ones that matter more.
Building that future requires something OpenAI has no prior experience with: a physical supply chain. Setting up manufacturing relationships, sourcing components, and potentially competing with established players like Apple for the same suppliers is a meaningfully different challenge from training a large language model.