After sinking $6.5 billion in building its very first gadget, OpenAI cannot afford to lose it to a product graveyard that includes a failed browser, video generator and shopping tool. The latest reports about the device suggest the company has settled on a strategy for making this one a winner: keep it at home and make it human-like.
OpenAI’s long-awaited device will be a screenless smart speaker that users can move from room to room. As reported, its defining feature will be its “personality” and ability to connect with users. That means OpenAI is following a well-trodden path pioneered by Amazon’s Alexa.
But it is also a potentially smarter approach to an AI product that people feel comfortable creating a personal relationship with, something that has eluded the wearable gadgets made by some of its smaller rivals.
Smart speakers have underwhelmed and disappointed for years because their underlying technology hit a capability plateau. Instead of the sci-fi dream of a conversational companion, they have in practice become over-priced timers, music players and light switches.
Despite the advent of AI chatbots, it has not been easy for Amazon, Apple and Google to upgrade their speakers with the ability to fully converse. Doing so required them to rebuild the devices to work with large language models, which are slow to process, expensive to run and sometimes hallucinate—without breaking the systems’ millions of existing functions.
Apple has yet to ship its virtual assistant Siri with a ChatGPT-style upgrade, but Amazon’s Alexa+ and Google’s Gemini for Home can now respond to users with natural speech and follow-up questions, and take a series of orders, like “dim the kitchen lights, play relaxing music and set a timer.”
Reviews for both souped-up assistants have generally been positive, meaning OpenAI is entering this market—unveiling its device in 2026 and release in 2027—just as Amazon and Google are figuring out how to thwart the AI giant.
That requires Jony Ive, the former Apple designer whose team Sam Altman nabbed last year, to create a moat for his new employer.
Naturally, for a company that has built a product many people have become emotionally attached to, the answer lies in giving the device a personality. It will probably have a name and, according to Bloomberg News, will include “mechanical elements that can move on their own, creating a sense that it is alive and not just an object responding to commands.”
That is why it makes sense for OpenAI to keep the device in the home rather than making it wearable or portable. Other startups tried making AI companion gadgets, but in the form of pendants worn throughout the day. These have faced the same social discomfort issues that bedevilled Google Glass.
Talking to AI in public is awkward and wearing an on-device microphone feels invasive to others. Both issues go away when the device starts off in your house; and perhaps with enough earned familiarity, it could turn into a smaller product that fits in your pocket like a pen.
OpenAI’s expertise in frontier AI models will give it an edge on relationship-building too. The new device will use an advanced version of ChatGPT’s new voice mode, which allows it to listen and speak simultaneously, so users can interrupt it mid-sentence without confusing the system.
It is easy to point to established smart speakers and say that OpenAI is revisiting a tired user interface. But when the iPhone came out in 2007, several touchscreen phones existed. Steve Jobs and Ive simply created a better version. Ive could do the same with Altman.
The question is how personal they will go to make their gadget sticky. Ive has expressed regret about the addictive nature of smartphones and how he may have contributed to it. But is a screen what makes a gadget habit-forming? Not necessarily. OpenAI’s own research has shown that heavy users of ChatGPT’s advanced voice mode present the highest risk of becoming emotionally dependent on it.
A focus on companionship could create a similar hazard to the one about the smartphone. Alexa and Gemini are competing on usefulness and Apple calls Siri a utility, not a companion. But OpenAI is pioneering a potentially lucrative and morally fraught path with a device that competes on attachment and is engineered to feel alive.
That could find a loyal following among ChatGPT users who want a deeper connection than simply syncing the chatbot to their emails. How might that behaviour evolve when a personified ChatGPT is always at the ready in their home? If Ive is seeking redemption by building less-addictive technology, he may find that goal comes into direct conflict with his employer’s business model. ©Bloomberg
The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology.