Ammon News - OpenAI said Wednesday that it’s buying Jony Ive’s AI devices startup io for about $6.4 billion in an all-equity deal that pushes the artificial intelligence company firmly into the world of hardware.

Ive is taking on “deep creative and design responsibilities across OpenAI and io,” the company said in a statement. OpenAI said io is coming in-house, while Ive and his “creative collective” called LoveFrom will stay independent.

In a blog post Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Ive said that io was founded a year ago by Ive, along with Apple alumni Scott Cannon, Tang Tan and Evans Hankey, who briefly took over Ive’s role at Apple after he departed.

“The io team, focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable, will now merge with OpenAI to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco,” the post said.

OpenAI said it’s paying $5 billion in the transaction, as it already owns 23% of the company. Altman wrote in a post on X that he believes Ive is “the greatest designer in the world.”

The purchase is by far OpenAI’s largest and comes weeks after the company agreed to buy AI-assisted coding tool Windsurf for $3 billion. Prior to that, OpenAI acquired analytics database company Rockset for an undisclosed sum in 2024. CNBC