OpenAI is building its first physical product: a screenless smart speaker designed to act as a “humanlike AI companion” capable of controlling your home, recognizing your face, and proactively helping before you even ask.
Jony Ive enters the chat
OpenAI acquired Jony Ive’s design firm, io Products, back in May 2025. Ive, the legendary industrial designer behind nearly every iconic Apple product from the iMac to the AirPods, is now leading hardware design for the AI giant.
The smart speaker is expected to launch around February 2027, with a price tag between $200 and $300. This isn’t just a speaker that responds when spoken to. Internal descriptions reportedly frame the device as an “active participant” in users’ daily lives. It will feature an embedded camera for environmental awareness, facial recognition to identify who’s in the room, and the ability to initiate interactions rather than wait passively for a wake word.
A development team of over 200 people is working on the project. Earlier plans had hinted at a possible unveil in the second half of 2026, according to OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, but the timeline has since shifted to early 2027. The company may also be developing adjacent AI hardware, including smart lamps and glasses.
Why a software company is building gadgets
For OpenAI, a proprietary device means owning the entire interaction layer between its AI models and the consumer. Right now, most people access ChatGPT through a phone screen or a browser tab. A dedicated device sitting in your kitchen or living room creates an always-on relationship with the AI, one that doesn’t require you to open an app or type a prompt.
What this means for investors
OpenAI isn’t a publicly traded company. OpenAI’s hardware strategy contains zero blockchain or cryptocurrency integration. No token, no decentralized protocol, no Web3 angle.
A device with a camera and facial recognition, sitting in your home and proactively observing your behavior, will generate enormous volumes of personal data. Decentralized identity and data sovereignty projects in crypto have long argued that this exact scenario is why blockchain-based alternatives matter.
The smart money is watching two things: whether OpenAI can actually ship hardware on schedule (February 2027 is the target), and whether the $200 to $300 price point holds once production realities set in.