OpenAI is building Apple-style gadgets — with Apple’s people

Earlier on Friday, The Information reported that Sam Altman’s company has been busy scooping up Apple veterans — designers, hardware engineers, and even wearable specialists — and talking with the go-to manufacturers that make Apple’s crown jewels. Luxshare, the iPhone and AirPods parts supplier, has reportedly already jumped on board, while Goertek, which builds parts for AirPods, HomePods, and Apple Watches, has been approached to make components such as speaker modules. 

And that means: It’s not a stretch to say the same factories that churn out Apple gear could soon be minting OpenAI’s first AI-native devices.

Reports from The Information suggest that one device prototype resembles a screen-free smart speaker (Apple makes two). Other ideas thought to be on the table include glasses, a digital voice recorder, and a wearable “pin,” echoes of Apple’s experiments in the same and similar categories. The devices won’t arrive tomorrow (or the day after that); the target launch window is late 2026 or early 2027 — but the apparent trail for an Open AI-branded gadget is already telling.

Earlier this year, Altman pitched the idea of an “AI companion” — a device that’s context-aware, screen-light, and designed to live alongside you rather than in your pocket. The OpenAI CEO has floated an eye-popping target of 100 million units and a shipping date by the end of 2026.

As a whole, the Apple parallels are obvious. Earlier this year, OpenAI bought io, the hardware startup that Apple design legend Jony Ive co-founded, for about $6.5 billion. Ive’s design firm, LoveFrom, remains independent but has been deeply involved in shaping OpenAI’s hardware vision. Now, add in senior Apple alumni such as Tang Tan and Cyrus Irani, who also once helped define the look and feel of the iPhone and Apple Watch, and you get what sounds like an Apple sequel, just maybe with a rebooted cast of characters. 

OpenAI leaning hard on Apple’s DNA is both a shortcut and a strategy. Hardware is brutally hard; it’s often better to borrow a blueprint that works. But for Apple, the optics are thornier. It isn’t just losing talent to a rival; it’s watching that rival repurpose its suppliers, its playbook, and maybe even its signature product categories. Apple’s challenge may be reputational as much as it is operational. That steady stream of high-profile staff to OpenAI suggests that Apple’s once-impenetrable design aura might be fading. 

Apple has been slow to roll out any of its own generative AI products, especially compared with Mag 7 competitors Microsoft $MSFT and Google $GOOGL, which are racing to bake AI into search, productivity, and the cloud. If OpenAI manages to land a consumer hit before Apple even finalizes its AI strategy, one of the world's most valuable companies could find itself not only out-hustled on AI but out-designed on the devices meant to showcase it.

So far, OpenAI hasn’t shown off a prototype, set a price, or committed to a single form factor. But if reporting holds, the company’s debut gadget will arrive with suspiciously Apple-like fingerprints all over it. Whether that becomes an advantage or a liability will depend on whether consumers are buying into AI hardware — or just another Apple echo. But if the past few months are any guide, OpenAI's first gadgets won’t just test its product chops — they'll be a referendum on whether fresher Silicon Valley ventures can beat Apple at its own game.