OpenAI’s first consumer hardware device will be a portable, screenless smart speaker designed to act as a “humanlike AI companion that lives in the home,” Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the project.
Powered by ChatGPT and its new GPT-Live voice model, the device would control smart-home appliances, play media, answer questions and respond to messages. What sets it apart from existing speakers, according to the report, is its ambition to feel alive: it reportedly has a personality, a camera and sensors to perceive its surroundings, a rechargeable battery so it can be carried room to room, and “mechanical elements that can move on their own” to create a sense of presence.
OpenAI frames it internally not as a smart speaker but as a new kind of home computer built for AI. The company aims to unveil it this year and ship it in 2027, though nothing is official and plans could change.
The device is the first fruit of OpenAI’s roughly $6.5 billion acquisition of io Products, the startup co-founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive, whose studio LoveFrom is leading the design. OpenAI is betting that LoveFrom’s talent for making technology feel personal will differentiate it in a market Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Nest have long dominated with command-and-response assistants.
The pitch is a proactive companion that learns an owner’s habits over time, draws on personal data like emails, and anticipates needs rather than waiting for commands, a bet that advanced language models can make the home assistant qualitatively smarter than a decade of existing devices managed. The Information reported a likely price of $200 to $300, and the speaker is said to be one of about five products in OpenAI’s hardware pipeline, which has also explored wearables and a phone-like device.
The report deepens OpenAI’s legal entanglement with Apple. Just last week, Apple sued OpenAI for trade secret theft, accusing OpenAI’s chief hardware officer Tang Tan, a former iPhone design lead, of orchestrating a scheme to obtain Apple’s confidential information, and noting OpenAI has hired more than 400 former Apple staff.
Bloomberg’s sources said OpenAI believes the speaker “veers significantly” from anything Apple sells and is unlikely to infringe its trade secrets, and OpenAI has said it has “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets.” Still, Apple has requested an injunction that, if granted, could delay or block the hardware. The report moved markets, sending speaker maker Sonos shares down more than 10% in late trading.
The Companion Gamble
The design choices reveal a genuine philosophical bet, and a risky one. By stripping the screen and adding motion and personality, OpenAI is wagering that people want an ambient presence to talk to rather than another glass rectangle, a vision closer to a character than an appliance.
Skeptics were quick to question it, noting that a modern phone already does most of what the device promises, only more portably, and that the “companion” framing courts the same emotional-attachment concerns swirling around AI chatbots. The stakes are high: OpenAI is heading toward an IPO, and proving it can build hardware, not just models, is central to its ambition to become a platform company rather than a supplier riding on Apple’s and Google’s devices.
The Privacy Problem
An always-listening, camera-equipped device that ingests your emails and watches your home concentrates enormous sensitivity in a single product, and the reaction has surfaced deep unease. Critics have flagged the obvious risk of a microphone and camera, built by a company whose business is data, sitting permanently in living spaces, with questions about what is recorded, retained and potentially used for training or advertising.
OpenAI has not detailed its privacy safeguards, and its recent moves toward advertising in ChatGPT sharpen the concern. For a companion device to earn a place in the home, trust in how it handles what it sees and hears may matter more than any hardware flourish, and that trust is far from guaranteed. Whether consumers embrace a proactive AI that knows this much about them, or recoil from it, is the central open question the 2027 launch will answer.
