Sam Altman And Jony Ive Struggle With Their Answer To Apple's Siri, Face Design Difficulties

OpenAI's chief executive officer Sam Altman and Jony Ive, the designer credited with making Apple's signature minimalist aesthetic are struggling to design their secretive AI device which is meant to be their answer to Apple's Siri.

According to a report from the Financial Times on Monday, they were grappling with a number of technical roadblocks with the device, which is meant to be palm-sized, portable and 'screen-free'.

Sources told the publication that users are meant to communicate with it through speakers, microphones and cameras, with multiple cameras considered for the device.

Siri is Apple's AI assistant which users can interact with to obtain information and execute functions in a matter of moments.

“The concept is that you should have a friend who's a computer who isn't your weird AI girlfriend," a source told Financial Times.

Siri's default voice was female and it was often stereotyped as an 'AI girlfriend' due to it becoming a trope in popular media of people engaging in romantic interactions with the AI.

Incidentally, the voice and mannerisms of the AI is what the duo seems to be agonising over the most. It was also unable to figure out when to interact with the user and when to conclude its interactions.

The device is meant to be "on" 24/7 instead of only being activated via voice commands like Amazon's Alexa or Siri, where it will collect information throughout the day to refine itself. But this feature also opens the pandora's box of privacy problems that come from a device that can always track its surroundings and listen in all the time.

Sources also told the publication that the tech infrastructure to power the AI device was still not realised due to a lack of computing infrastructure with Open AI, that Google, Apple and Amazon have for their AI assistants.

Altman and Ive partnered up in May 2025, and Open AI had reportedly purchased Ive's company 'io' for $6.5 billion. Altman had stated that this acquisition will increase OpenAI's valuation by $1 trillion at the time. He had mentioned that they would develop "a family of devices."

Ive is best known as being one of the major minds behind the iPhone and iPad, as well as helping Apple regain market dominance in the '90s. Ive resigned from the company and began his startup with fellow former Apple designers.