Sam Altman’s timing couldn’t be more poetic.
As Google’s I/O 2025 dazzled developers with AI and XR innovations, OpenAI crashed the party with a bombshell: a $6.4 billion deal for io, the secretive hardware startup by Apple legend Jony Ive.
The irony? Google’s conference—named I/O—was suddenly overshadowed by OpenAI’s acquisition of a company called io.
Ive, the mastermind behind the iPhone, will now shape OpenAI’s AI-first devices, aiming to dethrone the smartphone era he helped create.
Meanwhile, Google spent I/O pushing Gemini into smart glasses and Android XR—only for OpenAI to counter with a hardware moonshot led by Silicon Valley’s most revered designer.
The timing wasn’t lost on critics. “Altman loves to crash this party,” quipped one reporter, noting OpenAI’s cheeky disruption of Google’s flagship event.
With Ive’s design genius and OpenAI’s AI firepower, the battle for the next computing paradigm just got personal.
