On Wednesday, OpenAI announced that former Apple design chief Jony Ive and his design agency LoveFrom will take over artistic and design management at OpenAI. The deal makes Ive answerable for shaping the long run feel and appear of AI merchandise on the chatbot creator, extending throughout the entire firm’s ventures, together with ChatGPT.
Ive was Apple’s chief design officer for almost three many years, the place he led the design of iconic merchandise together with the iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and Apple Watch, incomes quite a few business awards and serving to rework Apple into the world’s most precious firm by way of his minimalist design philosophy.
“Thrilled to be partnering with jony, imo the best designer on the earth,” tweeted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman whereas sharing a 9-minute promotional video touting the non-public {and professional} relationship between Ive and Altman.
Ive left Apple in 2019 to discovered LoveFrom, a design agency that has labored with firms together with Ferrari, Airbnb, and luxurious Italian trend agency Moncler.
The mechanics of the Ive-OpenAI deal are barely convoluted. At its core, OpenAI will purchase Ive’s firm “io” in an all-equity deal valued at $6.5 billion—Ive based io final 12 months to design and develop AI-powered merchandise. In the meantime, io’s employees of roughly 55 engineers, scientists, researchers, physicists, and product growth specialists will change into a part of OpenAI.
In the meantime, Ive’s design agency LoveFrom will proceed to function independently, with OpenAI changing into a buyer of LoveFrom, whereas LoveFrom will obtain a stake in OpenAI. The businesses anticipate the transaction to shut this summer time pending regulatory approval.
