For years, the biggest question hanging over OpenAI's partnership with legendary designer Jony Ive was simple: what are they actually building? New reports finally offer an answer, and it is stranger and more interesting than most people guessed. OpenAI's first hardware device is shaping up to be a screenless, donut-shaped smart speaker, roughly the size of a hockey puck, expected to sell for US$300 to 400 when it launches in 2027.
A device with no screen
The defining choice is what the device leaves out. In a world where nearly every gadget fights for your eyes with a display, OpenAI and Ive are betting on the opposite. The device reportedly has no screen at all. Instead, it relies on speaker grilles and microphones for conversation, lights that signal when it is listening, and a camera plus sensors that feed information about your surroundings back to the AI.
The form factor is distinctive: a circular body with a hole in the middle, closer to a doughnut than a traditional speaker, built with upscale materials including high-quality metal. Reports describe moving parts and dynamic lighting, suggesting a device meant to feel alive and responsive rather than a static box on a shelf. The goal appears to be a more capable, always-available version of ChatGPT's voice mode that you can talk to naturally and that can see and understand the room around it.
The Jony Ive connection
This is the first concrete product to emerge from one of the most closely watched partnerships in tech. OpenAI acquired Ive's device startup, io, for US$6.4 billion in May 2025, bringing the designer behind the iPhone, iPad, and other era-defining Apple products into its orbit. The hardware is being developed with Ive's LoveFrom studio, and manufacturing is reportedly tied to Luxshare, a major Apple supplier.
That pedigree matters. Ive's involvement signals that OpenAI is not trying to ship a cheap accessory but a premium, design-led object meant to define a new category. The screenless, ambient approach echoes Ive's long-standing philosophy that the best technology recedes into the background rather than demanding constant attention.
Entering a crowded and unforgiving market
The ambition is clear, but so are the risks. The donut speaker would put OpenAI in direct competition with entrenched players like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, devices that have spent years in millions of living rooms and still struggle to move beyond timers, music, and weather. Meanwhile, the recent history of AI-first hardware is littered with cautionary tales, from splashy launches that failed to justify their price to gadgets that promised to replace the smartphone and quietly disappeared.
OpenAI's advantage is the software. A speaker powered by a genuinely capable conversational AI, one that can see, remember, and act, is a different proposition than the scripted assistants that came before. Whether consumers want a camera-equipped, always-listening device on their counter, and whether they will pay US$300 to 400 for it, is the open question that 2027 will answer.
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The device also hints at where AI is heading: away from apps and screens and toward assistants that live in the environment and act on your behalf. That same shift is already underway in business, where the most valuable AI is not the one you open and type into, but the one that quietly handles conversations and tasks in the background. Whether the interface is a donut on your counter or an agent handling your inbound leads, the direction is the same.
For now, the screenless donut remains a set of leaks and reports rather than a finished product. But it is the clearest look yet at how OpenAI and Jony Ive want to reshape the way people interact with AI in the physical world.
