OpenAI to Acquire Devices Company Founded by iPhone Designer Jony Ive for $6.5 Billion

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has struck a deal to acquire io, the product-development startup founded by Jony Ive — the former Apple employee who designed the iPhone — in a deal valued at $6.5 billion.

The deal is OpenAI’s biggest acquisition to date. The pact will merge Ive’s io team, which is “focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable,” with OpenAI “to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco,” OpenAI said in announcing the deal. Founded a year ago, io has 55 engineers, designers and researchers.

Ive is taking on “deep creative and design responsibilities across OpenAI and io,” OpenAI said in a statement. In addition, Ive and his LoveFrom creative collective “will assume deep design and creative responsibilities across OpenAI and io.”

The deal comes after OpenAI earlier this month announced a deal to buy AI coding tool company Windsurf (formerly known as Codeium) for $3 billion.

Ive was formerly Apple’s chief design officer and led the tech giant’s award-winning design team since 1996. He left Apple in 2019. Ive was the driving force behind many of the company’s products, including the iPhone, the iPod and the iMac.