Who is Jony Ive? Ace iPhone designer selling his AI devices startup to OpenAI for $6.4 billion

Apple designer Jony Ive to lead design efforts at OpenAI following the acquisition of his startup io.

On Wednesday, OpenAI announced it’s acquiring io, an AI devices startup founded by legendary designer Jony Ive, in a $6.4 billion all-equity deal. The deal includes OpenAI’s previous stake in the company.

OpenAI acquires Jony Ive's AI Startup io for $6.4 billion.(OpenAI)

Jony Ive, known worldwide as the creative genius behind Apple’s most iconic products—the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and MacBook Air—is set to take on “deep creative and design responsibilities across OpenAI and io,” according to a company statement. 

While it will now be absorbed into OpenAI, Ive’s design firm, LoveFrom, will remain independent and continue to operate separately.

“The io team, focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable, will now merge with OpenAI to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco,” Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman co-authored a blog post on Wednesday.

Jony Ive’s AI startup snapped up by OpenAI in mega-deal

The io startup was founded just a year ago by Ive alongside former Apple colleagues Scott Cannon, Tang Tan, and Evans Hankey, who briefly succeeded Ive at Apple after he stepped down as chief design officer in 2019.

This $6.4 billion acquisition dwarfs OpenAI’s recent purchases, including the AI coding tool Windsurf, acquired for $3 billion just weeks ago, and Rockset, an analytics database firm bought last year for an undisclosed amount.

Notably, after leaving Apple in 2019, Ive launched LoveFrom, a boutique creative firm that has attracted major clients like Airbnb, Christie’s, and Ferrari. The New York Times reported that some of these companies pay LoveFrom as much as $200 million annually for its services.

Rivals like Google, Anthropic, and Elon Musk’s xAI are all pushing boundaries with fresh innovations, and OpenAI is betting that a stronger hardware presence will help it maintain an edge.

Interestingly, just in November, the company hired Caitlin ‘CK’ Kalinowski, the former head of Meta’s Orion AR glasses project, to spearhead its robotics and consumer device efforts. Kalinowski shared that she would “initially focus on OpenAI’s robotics work and partnerships to help bring AI into the physical world and unlock its benefits for humanity.”