Paul Stenhouse: Apple's design guru is set to work with OpenAI full time

Johnny Ive, the designer behind the iPod, iMac & iPhone, is going all in with the creators of ChatGPT.

Two years ago he started a company, io, to rethink the computer for the AI-age - which OpenAI was an investor in.

OpenAI has now purchased it for $6.5 billion according to Bloomberg.

Tech commentator Paul Stenhouse says the staff will be joining OpenAI, but Ive won't be.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at B.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Apple's design guru has announced he's going to be working
with open Ai full time. Open Ai, of course as
the company behind chat GPT, but this is a guy
who designed the iPod, the iMac and the iPhone. So
our Textbert Paul Steenhouse will have been watching this development
with keen interest and is with us now, Paul, why
is this such.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
A big deal?

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Well, because he created the devices that have changed our world,
haven't they. And he's just got such a great mind
for creating simple products that were really just the light
people they work. They Yeah, and that's it. He was
Steve jobs right hand man like for all of those products,
and he stepped away from Apple quite a few years ago.

(00:56):
He actually created a design agency and partnered with some
interesting films. I don't think Airbnb was one of his
clients along the way. But two years ago he created
a company called Io. Now it's kind of a little
under the radar. It was actually funded in part by
open Ai and then about a quarter share in the company. Yeah,

(01:17):
it's been kind of bubbling away under the surface and
trying to figure out what the next product could be, right,
the next big product could be and how does it
incorporate AI? And what's really interesting is open Ai has
now said that they're purchasing all of Io for six
point five billion dollars according to Bloomberg, not a not

(01:38):
a small amount of cash, right, but with that sort
of money, you'd be thinking, okay, So that means that
Johnny Ive's going to be joining open Ai as a
full time staff member. But here's where it's weird. He's
not okay, But everybody else who's working on io is
so effectively church gpt open Ai. They're going to be
getting now this new product that they're going to be releasing,

(01:58):
they're saying next year that they want to ship to
one hundred million users on day one. Wow, mind blowing.
But Johnny Ive is not going to be joining an
opening eye full time. He's going to be kind of
almost like contracting I think through his company his agency, right,
which I just found was really weird. If you've put
a six point five billion dollar price tag, wouldn't you

(02:19):
think that like he'd be employee number whatever and you know,
your chief design officer. But no, he'll just be working
full time with them. And I think it's it's certainly
raddlesome people. And you know that because the Apple share
price fell two percent on the news, and when you're
a harmony trillion dollar company, that is a rather large
amount of money. Because if Apple's not creating this product,

(02:42):
who is, Well, it very well could be him. But
he's interesting product, that's it.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
That's it. What is he making?

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah, and we don't know that yet. No details have
been released about this at all, but it's said to
not be the iPhone killer. It's supposed to be sitting
beside your MacBook beside your iPhone. The idea is that
it will be a third device. Sam Oltman, the CEO,
kind of said, so it's probably going to be a
wearable but apparently Sam Moltman isn't too interested in wearables.

(03:12):
But I kind of don't know what else is going
to be, Yeah, short of a kind of more sophisticated
paper paperweight that sits on your desk, but it may
very well. I mean, it needs a connection to the
internet most likely, right, So it's probably going to be
through your iPhone or through your computer or something along
those lines, I guess, But no, no one knows anything
about it. Of course the Internet's like tried to guess

(03:34):
and are thinking of a few things, but no, we
know nothing about it. But we just know that they
want to go big and they've got the design brain
of what this passed?

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah interesting a few decades to be alongside them very quickly, Paul,
So that's opened my eyes side of things. Google has
revealed its new products for twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, so they had their big conference and three things
that stood out to me, Jack. Android is getting smart glasses.
So we don't know much about this apartment. It's called
Project Aura, but they're going to deliver what they're calling
mixed reality through those smart classes. So imagine it's kind
of augmented reality, right because they're coming equipped with microphones, cameras.
Their Gemini AI integration is the thing as well, so

(04:16):
I guess you'll be able to do the translate stuff
and the what is that thing? All that kind of stuff.
Google Shopping is going to get a new feature where
it will let you try on an outfit using AI,
so you take a full body photo of yourself, and
Google says that it's figured out the AI to work
out human bodies, the nuances of clothing fabric, how they fold, stretch,

(04:38):
drape all of that kind of stuff and you'll be
able to see what you'll look like in an outfit.
Sounds pretty interesting. And Gmail's smart replies are getting even smarter.
They're going to start looking at other emails that you've
received or as sending it will know who's been sending
it to you. So maybe the tone you send an
email back to your boss will be a little bit
different than the yol what up that you send to
your friends. It's going to have access to your Google

(05:00):
Drive too, So I thought those are three things that
are kind of interesting. But they had a stack of
announcements obviously very AI RELI today.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, of course, Hey, thanks Paul, appreciate it as always cool.
Paul Steinhouse is our textbook.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, Listen live
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