Apple sued OpenAI last week over alleged hardware trade secrets theft.
OpenAI is pitting its AI capabilities against the likes of Amazon and Google with its very first consumer gadget, a “mobile, screen-free smart speaker”, according to a Bloomberg report.
The publication’s sources said the new device is designed to be a next-generation, ChatGPT-powered home computer, and meant to be a physical embodiment of the AI chatbot.
Sources told journalist Mark Gurman that the device is meant to be a “human-like AI companion” that stays at home and controls smart-home appliances, responds to queries and plays media – tapping into OpenAI’s chart-leading ChatGPT models for these capabilities.
Similar devices, such as Amazon Alexa, Apple Home and Google Home, are already widely available on the market, but OpenAI is seemingly attempting to make upgrades to existing model standards. According to Bloomberg’s report, OpenAI is hinging on its ability to connect with users on a “human-like level”.
The new smart speaker is expected to become “increasingly personalised” over time as it continues to gather data on its users, including via reading emails.
“The speaker incorporates mechanical elements that can move on their own, creating a sense that it is alive and not just an object responding to commands,” read the report.
Though described as a speaker, the device, which is still under development, will include a camera along with other sensors to help it better understand context, sources said. It will also come with a rechargeable battery.
The speaker will communicate via the new ChatGPT voice model GPT-Live that was rolled out earlier this month. According to the AI giant, the model is capable of speaking with a cadence similar to humans, and can listen and speak at the same time.
GPT-Live “make[s] talking with AI feel much more like having a real conversation”, OpenAI said at the time of its launch.
Unlike its biggest direct competitor, Anthropic, which has a narrowed focus on the enterprise AI market, OpenAI is expanding its scope into the heavily populated consumer gadgets market.
The tech giant, which has shaky plans to go public this year, has shut down less profitable ventures such as the Sora video generation model and its standalone AI browser Atlas.
The company spent $6.5bn last summer to acquire Io, a hardware start-up co-founded by Apple design veteran Jony Ive and OpenAI’s current chief hardware officer Tang Yew Tan. And by November, it had finished developing its first device prototypes.
Its hardware division is currently developing five different products, but hopes to one day create a mobile AI device capable of replacing the smartphone.
The news comes as Apple, in a fresh lawsuit last week, accused OpenAI and its hardware division of stealing trade secrets.
The iPhone maker named Tan, its former VP of product design for iPhone and Apple Watches, in the suit, and accused OpenAI of taking part in a “coordinated pattern of misconduct” to gain access to confidential information about its unreleased products.
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