We still don't know what Jony Ive's ChatGPT device is, but we now know what it's not

OpenAI documents and emails reveal that whatever it is, the first io device won't be an earbud

A young person with dreadlocks and a dark green top is wearing an iyO one headphone in their right ear. The rest of the image is a light coloured background
OpenAI's io was very interested in the iyO One, the "world's first audio computer"
(Image credit: iyO)
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Quick Summary

OpenAI's IO Project is working on a stand-alone AI device, but it told a US trademark court that the first product will not be a wearble or earbud.

This comes after a trademark dispute was raised by similarly-named company iyO.

Former Apple design chief Jony Ive's mysterious OpenAI device just got slightly less mysterious.

A trademark dispute between OpenAI and the Google-backed tech startup iyO has revealed several details about the first device OpenAI intends to launch.

The seemingly now-scrapped IO brand has revealed in legal documents that its debut product is not in the same space as iyO's – it is not an earbud, therefore.

According to TechCrunch, IO's chief hardware officer Tang Tan – another ex-Apple exec – told the court that the future OpenAI product is "not an in-ear device, nor a wearable device". Rather, it's a product that OpenAI's Sam Altman says "fits in your pocket or sits on your desk", and its design hasn't been finalised yet. It's apparently at least a year away from being announced or released.

The IO team was the subject of a near-$6.5 billion acquisition by OpenAI, and it's now going to be folded into the wider OpenAI organisation to work on AI-related hardware.

So what is OpenAI making?

Jonathan Ive's AI device: what it isn't

There's an awful lot of noise here and precious little signal, which is perhaps a pretty apt metaphor for the AI bubble.

OpenAI published and then unpublished marketing materials and a promo video featuring Jony Ive and Sam Altman bigging up AI. That's because the IO brand name is now subject to a judicial restraining order while the trademark dispute goes through the court.

The startup iyO claims that IO is infringing its trademark – and while IO/OpenAI claim their first product isn't an in-ear device, Tang Tan and other team members did meet with iyO to discuss the firm's tech.

The iyO One is a $999 Wi-Fi / $1,199 Wi-Fi + LTE in-ear headphone that iyO describes as "the world's first audio computer". It is currently taking deposits for pre-orders.

According to emails from iyO, OpenAI's people were particularly interested in the ear scanners that iyO users to investigate its customers' ear canals. It seems that OpenAI also considered buying a database of ear scans from iyO as "a helpful starting point on ergonomics."

However, IO/OpenAI is adamant that a custom-fit ear-based device isn't on the cards, at least for the first device.

Carrie Marshall
Carrie Marshall

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).

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