iPhone and iPod designer Jony Ive is working on a new product with OpenAI, but is running into technical challenges, according to a report from Financial times on Sunday.
According to the FT report, the product is a screenless device in the palm of your hand that records audio and visual information and responds to requests. But OpenAI doesn’t have the size or scale of Amazon or Google and can barely handle the computing resources that ChatGPT users need.
For customers to get a custom AI device would require much more computing power. Maybe that’s why OpenAI intervened announced a multi-billion dollar data center partnership with AMD on Monday. Sam Altman, CEO of the company praised the agreement about X in an article that says: “The world needs a lot more computing power.”
Another challenge was configuring the device discreetly. It’s hard to know when to end a conversation, a known issue with ChatGPT. The team tries to ensure that the device is not submissive or overly concerned with agreeing with everything the user says.
An OpenAI representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
With the popularity of AI-powered chatbots, more and more companies are looking to extend the AI experience beyond the phone or desktop to the outside world.
Last year, the Rabbit R1 and Humane AI Pin were launched as smartphone-agnostic, multi-modal AI devices that record environmental information and are controlled largely by voice. Both devices failed to impress, although the Rabbit R1 received a major update last month.
Meta has invested heavily in AI-powered wearables with its Ray-Ban and Ray-Ban Display glasses Meta Ray-Ban’s turnover has tripled in the past year.
According to a report by Grand View Research, the wearable AI market is expected to reach $165 billion by 2030.
OpenAI acquired Ives’ IoT design company for $6.5 billion in May.