OpenAI’s AI smart speaker is shaping up to be one of the more expensive gadgets on the smart home shelf, with sources telling Bloomberg the device will carry a price tag somewhere between $300 and $400. For context, Amazon’s smart speaker range runs from around $40 at the low end to $240 at the top. OpenAI is not exactly playing in the budget aisle.
A Donut You Cannot Eat, With Moving Parts You Cannot Explain
Bloomberg’s reporting paints an unusual picture. The device is described as ‘donut-shaped,’ built from ‘high-quality metal,’ and given a ‘premium look’ designed to sit comfortably in different rooms, a bedside table, a kitchen counter, wherever you want your AI ambient presence to live. It will also, somewhat mysteriously, feature ‘moving parts.’ No further elaboration on that detail, which is either a masterstroke of intrigue or a polite way of saying nobody asked follow-up questions.
The release window is currently somewhere in 2027, according to Bloomberg. Smart speakers have historically been a tricky market even for companies with deep pockets and established ecosystems. A premium price does not make entry any easier.
The OpenAI AI Smart Speaker’s Design Pedigree
The hardware is being developed with LoveFrom, the design studio founded by Jony Ive, the designer synonymous with Apple’s product identity for two decades. Fortune reports that LoveFrom employs approximately 50 to 60 people in San Francisco, including designers, colour specialists, and sculptors who physically build products from scratch. That is a studio built to obsess over objects, not just render them.
The design partnership runs deeper than a consulting arrangement. OpenAI’s own announcement confirmed that as of 9 July 2025, io Products, Inc., the hardware startup Ive co-founded with Apple alumni Scott Cannon, Tang Tan, and Evans Hankey, formally merged with OpenAI. Ive and LoveFrom remained independent but took on deep design and creative responsibilities across the company. CNBC reported the acquisition price at $6.4 billion.
OpenAI has also been building out its hardware bench more broadly. In November, the company hired Caitlin ‘CK’ Kalinowski, former head of Meta’s Orion augmented reality glasses initiative, to lead its robotics and consumer hardware efforts, according to CNBC. Her initial focus was to be on robotics work and partnerships, with consumer hardware presumably following.
Apple Is Not Simply Watching From the Sidelines
The legal situation complicates the picture considerably. Apple filed a trade secrets complaint on 10 July 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, naming OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI Group PBC, io Products LLC, and several individuals as defendants, according to the CourtListener docket for the case (5:26-cv-07078).
Apple’s allegations are pointed. CNBC reported that Apple claimed an OpenAI official directed job candidates still employed at Apple to bring ‘actual parts’ from Apple to interviews for ‘show and tell’ sessions intended to elicit confidential information. Apple also alleged the theft extended from members of OpenAI’s Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer.
Apple then escalated further. Quartz reported that, as of 4 August 2026, Apple had filed for a preliminary injunction, arguing it ‘will be irreparably harmed absent a preliminary injunction’ and that ‘OpenAI, its people, and partners should not be permitted to develop, release, and benefit from products using and developed with the benefit of Apple’s trade secrets.’ That framing is a direct challenge to the speaker programme itself.
OpenAI is pushing back. On 5 August 2026, the company filed an Administrative Motion to Consider Whether Another Party’s Material Should Be Sealed, attaching a Motion to Dismiss, per the CourtListener docket. In a separate post titled ‘Apple is getting this wrong’, OpenAI described the suit as ‘careless, aggressive and oddly personal,’ while simultaneously calling Apple ‘one of the greatest companies of all time.’ The post included emails and iMessage exchanges OpenAI says contradict Apple’s account.
The preliminary injunction hearing is the one to watch. If Apple succeeds in blocking development or release pending trial, the 2027 timeline for the donut-shaped speaker gets a lot more uncertain.
