Sundar Pichai praised Jony Ive’s design legacy in an interview and talked about AI’s hardware impact.
OpenAI acquired the ex-Apple design boss’ startup, IO, for nearly $6.5 billion to work on AI products.
Ive and Altman’s announcement coincided with Google’s I/O conference, echoing last year’s news drop.
OpenAI and the former iPhone designer Jony Ive’s nearly $6.5 billion deal got the tech industry talking last week — and Google’s CEO has now weighed in.
Like many tech leaders, Google CEO Sundar Pichai is leading his company through a mission to build out its AI empire with both software and hardware products. Meanwhile, the hiring war for top talent has heated up as companies spend big to execute on their goals. OpenAI’s latest move was to bring in a not-so-secret weapon whom Apple had long leaned on for his design chops: Ive.
When asked about OpenAI’s nearly $6.5 billion deal to acquire Ive’s secretive startup, IO, and collaborate on hardware with his design collective, LoveFrom, Pichai praised the former Apple design chief.
“Stepping back, Jony Ive is one of a kind,” Pichai said during an interview for the “Decoder” podcast.
He pointed to Ive’s storied track record, which includes leading the design of iconic Apple products, such as the iMac, iPhone, and Apple Watch. While the pair have met only a few times, Pichai said, he and many others in the tech industry have long been admirers of Ive’s work.
“I think it’s exciting,” Pichai said. “There’s so much innovation ahead, and I think people tend to underestimate this moment.”
To underscore his point, Pichai reminded listeners that Google, the most popular search engine in the world, didn’t exist when the internet was invented. We’re in a similar moment with artificial intelligence, the Google CEO said — except he predicted that AI would be “bigger than the internet.”
“There are going to be companies, products, and categories created that we aren’t aware of today,” he said.
While Pichai said he’s excited to see what Ive and OpenAI’s Sam Altman have in store, he said Google would also be “doing a lot” of innovation as AI shifts the industry. That doesn’t mean a mystery AI hardware product will replace the smart gadgets we use today, Pichai said.
Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
While Altman and Ive haven’t announced what their products will look like, consumers can expect a “family of AI products,” the pair said in a video last week. Reports have indicated they’re working on an AI companion device, and Altman has previously said he has “no interest in trying to compete with a smartphone.”
OpenAI went public about the deal on Wednesday while Google’s annual I/O developer conference was in full swing — a move that didn’t appear to be lost on Pichai.
It’s not the first time the ChatGPT maker dropped a big announcement around the same time as Google I/O. Last year, the company announced its AI model GPT-4o on May 13, a day before Google’s 2024 I/O conference kicked off.
“I’m looking forward to an OpenAI announcement ahead of Google I/O, the night before,” Pichai said.
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