Jony Ive spent decades shaping Apple’s fashion, clear aesthetics, and making iconic products such as iPhones and iMacs that define a generation of consumer technologies. Now, he is helping lead the next technological leap – designing consumer-facing AI devices with OpenAI. The project has won the support of Lauren Powell Jobs.
“It’s a wonderful thing to just look at something new, just look new,” said Powell Jobs in an interview with the United Financial Times. She has been a long-time supporter of IVE’s work and an investor in his design firm Lovefrom since his Apple era. The company’s derivative IO was recently acquired by Openai for a $6.4 billion contract to integrate its efforts into a new category of AI-powered consumer products.
Powell Jobs has learned about their construction soon. “I’ve seen in real time how ideas go from ideas to certain words, to some drawings, to some stories, to prototypes, to a different type of prototype, to a different type of prototype,” she said. “And then what comes to mind: I can’t imagine getting better, only seeing the next version, or even better.”
Sam Altman’s Openai plans to launch groundbreaking AI devices sometime next year after acquiring IO and its 55-person team. I will continue to be independent of the company but lead its creative and design directions, and he began a conversation with Altman about AI hardware in 2023. He continued to find IO later that year to explore these ideas. Although the entire terms of the OpenAI acquisition have not been disclosed, the deal is expected to make Ive a billionaire and Grant Powell Jobs becomes a major stake in Openai.
Long-term relationship
Powell Jobs and I have been intimate since Steve Jobs died in 2011. In addition to investing in IO, Powell Jobs also supports Love through her investment platform Emerson Collective. “If it weren’t for Lauren, it wouldn’t exist,” I told the Financial Times. “For me, it’s like we grew up together.”
Despite Powell’s deep involvement with Ive’s Openai Venture, Powell has not stayed away from Apple with Apple, which now races with Openai and other major players to lead AI races. “I’m still very close to Apple’s leadership team,” said Powell Jobs, whose estimated net worth of $14.2 billion is basically linked to her stake in Apple and Walt Disney Company. “They are really good people, and I hope they succeed too.”
To be precise, Openai’s buildings are still tightly wrapped, although both Ive and Altman insist that the device will not be another smartphone. My goal is to design a product that counteracts the unhealthy relationship people have with the device now, a dynamic he admits helping create. “While some of the less positive consequences are unintentional, I still feel responsible,” he said.
Since the early 1990s, today’s tech industry has become unrecognizable, and according to me, innovation is driven by a sense of “service to humanity.” “I don’t feel that way about this place right now,” he added. Powell Jobs responded to his concerns, pointing out the harmful effects of mental health crises and technology on young people.
Through its partnership with OpenAI, both hope to restore a more optimistic and humane vision for technology. “Many of us would say we have an upset relationship with technology right now,” I said. “Humans deserve better.”
