The description for OpenAI's first hardware device suggests it will be a speaker that can wiggle around a bit while it reads your email, so a HomePod, but more annoying and privacy-invasive.
Just moments after OpenAI shared an empty statement on Apple's trade secret lawsuit, new information was shared about the company's upcoming hardware. While it offered no public comment, internally it wants everyone to believe it is a completely unique product.
The newly leaked information comes from Bloomberg, which shares that the first OpenAI hardware product will be a smart speaker. It will have motorized moving parts, a rechargeable battery, and act as a companion to the user.
It is rumored to be the first of five potential hardware products that OpenAI is working on. The device could be revealed later in 2026 and ship in early 2027 as long as Apple's lawsuit doesn't stop its release.
OpenAI believes that it's so unique it couldn't possibly be seen as a copy of anything Apple ships today.
The supposed speaker device will have a unique design, lack a display, but it will have a camera for processing its surroundings. It will utilize ChatGPT Live and have the ability to parse user speech even as it provides an answer.
Nintendo already makes a product that randomly talks and is overly nice to you
OpenAI also hopes that the product can be proactive and speak without being prompted. If I've learned anything about technology, it's that people hate it when products speak on their own.
Ask anyone that bought Nintendo's Talking Flower, or perhaps someone who owned a Furby.
The product is meant to connect on a "humanlike" level with users, learn from user data, and feel like a companion.
Frankly, I'm tired of this desire to anthropomorphize AI chatbots. They can't think, they can't reason, they don't hear, or speak, or any of those things.
In any case, this certainly sounds a lot like a HomePod, or perhaps the future Apple Home Hub tablet that will ship with an AI-powered mechanical arm.
The Apple Home Hub is expected to be announced at any time
It seems OpenAI wants this product to act as a kind of home for ChatGPT. Apple pitched the HomePod the same way when it was first announced — a home for Siri.
The parallels couldn't be more obvious. And given that Jony Ive is behind the product's design, I'm not sure how this will release without resembling an Apple product.
With only a couple of years of runway left before OpenAI's cash starts to run out, it seems odd to bet everything on a technology most people probably already have in their homes. Amazon and Google just upgraded their range of smart speakers with AI capabilities, and Siri is getting a significant upgrade later in the fall.
What Apple has that these other companies don't is user trust with private data. OpenAI needs a way to get access to users' apps and email, while everyone's iPhone already has it, privately.
Frankly, if a smart speaker that can wiggle and read your emails is all OpenAI has got after poaching 400 Apple employees, it is in trouble. Perhaps that supposed iPhone killer that's expected by 2028 will turn things around.
