The man who designed the iPhone is now designing a talking doughnut. No, seriously. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman — the reporter who seems to have a direct line into every secret hardware project in tech — OpenAI is teaming up with legendary Apple designer Jony Ive to build a battery-powered, doughnut-shaped smart speaker that's roughly the size of a hockey puck. And the weirdest part? It has moving parts that shift on their own when it talks to you, so it feels "more alive" than the boring plastic cylinders sitting in your living room.
It's the kind of story that makes a perfect weekend read: a $300 gadget that doesn't exist yet, designed by the guy who made tech beautiful, built by the company that made chatbots mainstream, and — to add a little drama — Apple is now suing OpenAI over it. Let's break down everything we know, everything we don't, and why this little donut could actually matter.
What We Know (So Far)
Before we go any further, one important disclaimer: none of this is official. OpenAI hasn't announced a device. What we know comes from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, citing people "familiar with the matter," and the details have been corroborated by The Verge and Ars Technica. Treat everything below as a highly informed rumor — the tech equivalent of a trailer that looks amazing but hasn't confirmed a release date yet.
Here's the picture that's emerging:
- It's a smart speaker without a display. Gurman describes it as "essentially a smart speaker without a display" — no screen to stare at, just a voice you talk to. Think Amazon Echo, not iPhone.
- It's small and portable. Roughly hockey-puck-sized and battery-powered, so you can carry it around one-handed. OpenAI reportedly compares it to Amazon's long-discontinued Echo Tap — a portable speaker that never quite caught on.
- It costs more than $300. Reports put the price between $300 and $400, which is a bold move for a device category where Amazon basically gives speakers away. We'll come back to that.
- It's designed to feel alive. The most interesting detail: the device reportedly has moving parts that shift on their own when it responds, plus lights, sensors, and a camera. The goal is to make it feel "more alive than today's stationary speaker products."
- It runs advanced ChatGPT voice. Not the free tier — OpenAI reportedly wants to pair it with its most advanced voice models for "humanlike interactivity," plus smart-home control.
- The reveal is expected this year, launch in 2027. So we might see it announced soon, but it won't reach your coffee table until next year.
Why "More Alive" Matters More Than You Think
Let's talk about the moving parts, because that's the detail that separates this from yet another smart speaker.
Every smart speaker to date — Echo, HomePod, Google Nest — treats the hardware as a dumb container for the voice assistant. You talk, it answers, a light ring glows. The interaction is fundamentally a phone call with a box. OpenAI's bet is that the next generation of AI hardware needs to feel like a presence, not a speaker.
Think about it: we've spent the last few years training people to treat AI as a conversational partner. ChatGPT talks like a person, reasons like a person (mostly), and occasionally argues like a person. But then you talk to it through a static plastic cylinder that never moves, and the illusion cracks. OpenAI's moving-parts idea is an attempt to close that gap — to give the AI a physical body language. The device shifts, tilts, or adjusts itself when it "speaks," the way a person leans in when they're about to say something important.
It's a gimmick, sure. But it's a gimmick aimed at the core problem of AI hardware: making software that feels alive work with hardware that feels dead.
And before you roll your eyes, remember that Jony Ive's entire career was built on making people feel things about objects. He's the guy who made a phone you couldn't stop touching. If anyone can make a talking doughnut feel intentional rather than silly, it's him.
The Smartphone Replacement Ambition
Here's where the story gets bigger than a novelty gadget. Bloomberg reports that OpenAI sees this device as a potential smartphone replacement — the first in a planned "family of devices."
That's a wild ambition, and it's worth unpacking. OpenAI's thesis seems to be: if the AI is the product, the hardware is just a portal. A phone is a portal to apps; OpenAI's speaker is a portal to a conversation. If ChatGPT voice becomes genuinely good enough to handle your calendar, your messages, your smart home, and your random questions, then a dedicated always-on device could genuinely replace the phone for a huge chunk of daily tasks — no apps, no notifications, no doomscrolling.
It's not a new dream. Amazon tried it with the Echo line. Meta is quietly winning with its Ray-Ban glasses, which let you talk to an AI without pulling out a phone. And Apple is reportedly building its own AI wearables. But OpenAI has two things the others lack: the best-known AI brand in the world, and a design legend who can make the hardware feel inevitable.
The company already dipped a toe into hardware with the Codex Micro — a $230 keyboard designed for AI coding, released last year. This speaker would be the second device in that family, and by far the most ambitious.
The Apple Lawsuit Subplot
No tech drama is complete without a legal angle, and this one has a doozy: Apple is suing OpenAI over alleged trade secrets.
The backstory, per Bloomberg: Apple claims OpenAI used proprietary information in building this device project. OpenAI reportedly ran an internal probe and concluded the speaker uses no Apple IP, and the company is expected to fight the claims. Jony Ive left Apple in 2019 (after years of winding down his role), and his studio LoveFrom has been working with OpenAI since around 2023 — so the "stealing secrets" narrative has a natural tension: how do you steal trade secrets from the company your design partner already left?
Still, the lawsuit adds a fascinating layer of irony. Apple spent years treating the smart speaker category as a side project (the HomePod never really took off). Now the designer who defined Apple's aesthetic is building a competitor device for the company that made AI mainstream — and Apple is trying to stop it. Whatever the legal merits, it's a great story, and it tells you exactly how threatened the phone makers are by the AI-device wave.
A Quick Tour of the AI Hardware Graveyard (and One Winner)
If you're wondering whether a $300 AI speaker can succeed, the recent history of AI gadgets is a cautionary tale — with one bright exception.
- Humane AI Pin ($699): Launched with massive hype, flopped spectacularly. The company was reportedly acquired for its software after the hardware failed to find an audience. Its fatal flaw: it tried to replace the phone without being better than a phone at anything.
- Rabbit R1 ($199): A palm-sized gadget that was supposed to "do things" for you via AI. It launched to brutal reviews and became a cautionary meme. The lesson: promising an agentic AI is easy; delivering one is hard.
- Amazon Echo Tap: The portable Echo from 2016 — OpenAI reportedly references this as a comparison point. It was discontinued, largely because portable speakers without a clear use case don't survive.
- Meta Ray-Ban Glasses (winner): The breakout hit of the category. Meta reportedly can't make them fast enough. The difference? They look like normal glasses, work with a phone you already own, and nail one thing (first-person photos + AI answers) instead of trying to replace everything.
The pattern is brutal: AI gadgets fail when they try to replace the phone, and succeed when they complement it. The AI Pin and Rabbit tried to be phones. The Ray-Bans know they're not. Which path is OpenAI's doughnut on? Honestly, it's unclear — the "smartphone replacement" talk suggests the ambitious path, but the small, portable, always-available form factor suggests the complementary path. The $300-$400 price point, though, is a problem either way: it's more than most people pay for a smart speaker, and it puts the device in "serious purchase" territory where expectations are high.
What to Watch For
Here's my honest take on how to read this story over the next few months:
The reveal is the easy part. If OpenAI unveils the device this year (as reported), the internet will lose its mind. It's Jony Ive. It's OpenAI. It's a talking doughnut. The hype cycle will write itself.
The hard part is the demos. The moving-parts gimmick will be either magical or laughable in the first 30 seconds of a demo. Watch how the device responds to interruption, to side conversations, to being passed around. That's where you'll see if "feels alive" is real or just a servo motor doing a party trick.
The real test is price. At $300+, this isn't an impulse buy. OpenAI will need the voice experience to be so good that people feel they're buying a relationship, not a speaker. That's a tough sell — but honestly, it's the exact kind of moonshot that Jony Ive spent his career pulling off.
The Bottom Line
Is a $300 squirming AI doughnut the future of computing? Probably not on its own. But it's the clearest sign yet that the AI companies believe the next battleground is hardware that feels alive — and that they're willing to bet big, and fight legal battles, to get there first.
The smartphone replacement dream has failed for every company that tried it. But it has never been attempted with a designer like Jony Ive, a brand like OpenAI, and a voice experience that genuinely feels human. That combination alone makes this the most interesting AI gadget story of the year — and the perfect thing to think about over your weekend coffee. ☕
A smart operator keeps an eye on the gadgets that could change the game — before everyone else does. This one's worth watching.
Infographic: The 300 AI Doughnut
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