{"id":188903,"date":"2025-06-16T11:53:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T11:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/188903\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T11:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T11:53:11","slug":"openai-cfo-says-secret-device-to-usher-in-new-computing-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/188903\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI CFO Says \u2018Secret\u2019 Device to Usher in New Computing Era"},"content":{"rendered":"

OpenAI\u2019s<\/a> acquisition of legendary Apple designer Jony Ive\u2019s artificial intelligence (AI) devices startup will lead to a new computing era similar to the leap from flip phones to the touchscreen smartphone.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the prediction of OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar<\/a>, who made the revelation during a fireside chat on Friday (June 13) at the VivaTech 2025<\/a> conference in Paris.<\/p>\n

Friar drew parallels between OpenAI\u2019s plans for AI devices and the technologies that ushered in past computing revolutions. For example, she compared the shift to moving from typing commands into a PC to an image-rich screen where people can click on icons, menus and buttons that made using a computer much easier for most people.<\/p>\n

The CFO said the io acquisition, led by Ive and a small elite team, could define how people interact with AI in the years to come \u2014 moving beyond typing and tapping into something multimodal and intuitive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn every tech era, there\u2019s always been a new substrate that really brought it to life,\u201d Friar said. \u201cIn the world of the PC or the internet generation, it was the graphical user interface that really brought it to the world. \u2026 When the mobile generation happened, what really brought it to life was the touchscreen on the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s AI use is still trapped in old modalities, she said, much like early mobile experiences simply shrunk desktop websites.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything I imagine right now is probably going to seem a little cute in hindsight,\u201d Friar added. \u201cIn the same way that 2\u00bd years ago, ChatGPT would have felt like a dream \u2014 and here we are, 2\u00bd years later, with half a billion people using it every single week.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Friar did not unveil the form factor of the new interface, she hinted it would depart radically from today\u2019s keyboard-and-screen paradigm. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think for AI, there\u2019s a whole new way to think about multimodality,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to stop thumb-talkers (texting) to begin with. We\u2019re going to think about the fact that we hear, we see, we speak. And these models have an intelligence that can take all of that in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more<\/strong>: OpenAI Acquires Jony Ive\u2019s AI Device Startup for $6.4B<\/a><\/p>\n

Over $100 Million Per Head<\/p>\n

The $6.4 billion deal for io was a big bet on a team of 50 people, equating to over $100 million per person. What vision was worth the price?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reminds me of mobile,\u201d Friar said. \u201cWhen mobile happened, all we did was take a website from a desktop and put it on a really small screen. \u2026 It totally missed the point of, \u2018If I have location and I have mobility, I can give birth to Uber.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

OpenAI is banking on Ive and his team to revolutionize how people use devices. The team has done it before: It includes key veterans of Apple\u2019s most iconic products. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s actually an incredible team that sits behind [Ive],\u201d Friar said, citing Tang Tan, who \u201chelped bring the supply chain to life and the design and the mechanics of the iPhone, of the Watch, of the AirPods.\u201d<\/p>\n

The addition of io, an AI hardware startup, while substantive, is just one of several ways OpenAI is changing its business model.<\/p>\n

Due to rising demand for its AI models \u2014 500 million people use its AI models weekly \u2014 OpenAI has extended its cloud relationships beyond Microsoft to include Oracle and CoreWeave, Friar said. It is also building its own data centers, through Stargate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asked whether OpenAI could soon become a publicly traded company, Friar said the company is undergoing a recapitalization and will restructure its for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation (PBC) \u2014 a move that could pave the way for an eventual IPO.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in the midst of our recapitalization,\u201d she said. \u201cOn the for-profit side, it will become a public benefit corp. And public benefit corps can indeed go public. \u2026 Every one of our competitors is a PBC. So we think it\u2019s the right shift to be making.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nonprofit parent will remain integral, she added, as it provides mission alignment and governance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a for-profit entity \u2014 I work in a for-profit entity, albeit we need to get to the profit point,\u201d Friar said, as OpenAI is still losing money despite a $10 billion annual revenue run rate. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut the nonprofit is really important, because that\u2019s where a lot of governance comes from, and it\u2019s a big part of our mission alignment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more<\/strong>: Apple Loses Design Muse Jony Ive<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more<\/strong>: OpenAI Added 1\u00a0Million Paying Businesses Subscribers Since February<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more<\/strong>: OpenAI Aims to Offer AI Access Through \u2018Ambient Computer Layer,\u2019 Without Screens<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo, from left: The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OpenAI\u2019s acquisition of legendary Apple designer Jony Ive\u2019s artificial intelligence (AI) devices startup will lead to a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3164],"tags":[323,77515,1942,3284,8080,751,77516,55178,12,1318,3279,77517,53,16,15,77518,72340],"class_list":{"0":"post-188903","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-computing","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-ai-devices","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-computing","12":"tag-genai","13":"tag-generative-ai","14":"tag-i-o","15":"tag-jony-ive","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-openai","18":"tag-pymnts-news","19":"tag-sarah-friar","20":"tag-technology","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom","23":"tag-viva-technology","24":"tag-vivatech"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114692908839093266","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}