OpenAI’s big hardware venture alongside legendary ex-Apple designer Jony Ive is reportedly shaping up to be a smart home speaker powered by AI. But unlike your average agentic chatbot-enabled Amazon Echo Dot or Google Home Speaker, OpenAI’s puck is built for squirming.
The latest report from Bloomberg offers us our most complete idea of what to expect from OpenAI’s nascent hardware, expected to launch in 2027. According to anonymous sources, the smart speaker will be shaped like a donut and about the size of a hockey puck. Bloomberg even suggests that the device costs around $300 or $400, which would be significantly more than most other smart home speakers. For that price, the device will include “parts that move on their own” when it’s interacting with the user. The point of such wriggling is meant to make it feel “alive.” We’ll just have to see for ourselves whether an anthropomorphized robot pet puck is endearing or creepy.
More than a simple smart home hub, the OpenAI puck is supposed to act like a “companion” that can be operated either handheld or on a desk. The company behind ChatGPT may try to emphasize how you could take it with you in your backpack to work, if you really can’t spend five minutes without your AI friend hanging about.
There’s reportedly no screen, either. That means you’ll have no choice but to talk to your AI and pray it gets the answers you need. It’s said to include some LED lights to let you know when it’s listening, but it will also include sensors that could include a camera to perceive its surroundings.
“The big takeaway here is that it looks, feels and acts nothing like an Apple product or anything the company is currently planning,” Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said on X.
As much as we can pretend that this supposed wriggling AI puck is wholly unique, it’s not far outside the realms of what other companies have been working on—including Apple. Last year, Apple’s Machine Learning Research Division shared its work on an AI-based lamp, the kind that’s supposed to remind you of Pixar’s beloved Luxo Jr. mascot. The “ELEGNT” lamp could follow your movements, pretend to read with you, and act a little spontaneous as it performed its tasks.
For instance, instead of simply telling you the weather on command, it would pretend to look outside (likely giving the AI chatbot a chance to formulate its response) and then give you the answer. And yes, that’s as cute as it sounds. But it’s not the kind of device that would have the same functionality that a big breakout hardware product from OpenAI requires. OpenAI reportedly has plans for several more AI-focused products down the line, including a potential smartphone, and we have to see if they can get any more or less weird than the moving puck. Apple reportedly has plans for new AI Siri-enabled HomePods.
I know we shouldn’t knock something before seeing it, but OpenAI’s first hardware device doesn’t sound all that appealing or genre-defining as initially suggested when Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman first teamed up. There’s also the awkwardness surrounding an ongoing lawsuit between Apple and the makers of ChatGPT over allegations the AI lab—buoyed by loads of ex-Apple staff—effectively stole trade secrets. OpenAI responded to the suit, saying it was a “baseless” witch hunt designed to cover up Apple’s initial failures at its own AI rollout.
Looking beyond the corporate cock fight, the real question we should be asking is if we really want yet another AI gadget in our lives. If push came to shove, we’d take a Pixar lamp over a puck any day.
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