Apple sued OpenAI last week for allegedly stealing hardware trade secrets.
OpenAI is comparing its AI capabilities to the likes of Amazon and Google with its first consumer gadget, a “mobile, screenless smart speaker”.
According to Bloomberg, the new device is designed to be a home computer with next-generation ChatGPT, which aims to be a virtual reality AI chatbot.
Sources told journalist Mark Gurman that the device is intended to be a “human-like AI companion” that lives at home, and controls smart home appliances, answers questions, plays media – by entering the ChatGPT models that lead the OpenAI chart in these skills.
Similar devices, such as Alexa, Apple Home and Google Home are already widely available on the market, but OpenAI seems to be trying to improve the existing model. According to a Bloomberg report, OpenAI relies on its ability to interact with users on a “human-like level”.
The new smart speaker is expected to become “increasingly human” over time as it continues to collect data from its users, including reading emails.
“The speaker combines mechanical objects that can move on their own, giving the impression that it is alive and not just something that responds to commands,” reads the report.
Although described as a speaker, the device, still under development, will include a camera and other sensors to help it better understand context, sources said. It will also come with a rechargeable battery.
The speaker will communicate via ChatGPT’s new voice model GPT-Live which was launched earlier this month. According to the AI giant, the model can speak with a human-like cadence, and can listen and speak at the same time.
GPT-Live “does[s] talking to AI is like having a real conversation”, said OpenAI at the launch.
Unlike its biggest direct competitor, Anthropic, which is narrowly focused on the business AI market, OpenAI is expanding its presence in the crowded consumer gadget market.
The tech giant, which has faltering plans to go public this year, has shuttered less profitable businesses such as its Sora video production model, and its standalone AI browser.
The company spent $6.5bn last summer to acquire Io, a hardware startup founded by Apple design veteran Jony Ive and its current hardware chief Tang Yew Tan. And by November, it had finished making prototypes of its first device.
Its hardware division is currently developing five different products, but it hopes to one day make an AI mobile device that can replace a smartphone.
The news comes as Apple, in a new lawsuit last week, accused OpenAI and its hardware division of stealing trade secrets.
The iPhone maker accused Tan, its former VP of product development for the iPhone and Apple Watches, of engaging in a “systematic pattern of misconduct” to access and share confidential information about its unreleased products.
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