Hardware instead of AI: AR glasses expert switches from Meta to OpenAI

Until now, OpenAI has primarily been a software company. But that is clearly set to change. On the one hand, OpenAI is working with partners to produce its own chips. In addition, an expert in product design and augmented reality glasses is joining the AI company.

Caitlin Kalinowski has shared a post on LinkedIn in which she announces the change. According to the post, she will head the "Robotics and Consumer Hardware" department at OpenAI. The focus will be on working on robots. She wants to "bring AI into the physical world and develop benefits for humanity." At Meta, Kalinowski was "Head of AR Glasses Hardware" and specifically responsible for Orion, the AR glasses that Mark Zuckerberg presented at this year's Connect. They are only available as prototypes so far, but the presentation caused quite a stir – and generated a lot of enthusiasm among the people who were able to try them out. Meta calls them holographic glasses. Before that, Kalinowski was responsible for the VR headset Oculus, and the Stanford graduate worked on the design of several MacBooks at Apple.

Inflow instead of layoffs at OpenAI

A number of employees at OpenAI recently resigned, particularly from the management team. These included most of the company's founders. Ilya Sutskever, for example, set up his own AI company called Safe Superintelligence, Mira Murati, long the face of the company alongside Sam Altman, also announced after her departure that she wanted to set up something of her own, while others moved to competitor Anthropic. The reasons for the terminations were – as far as publicly known – differing views on the security of the AI models and the profit-oriented focus of the company.

A portrait of Jony Ive in the New York Times revealed that OpenAI is increasingly focusing on hardware. There, the former Apple chief designer said that he was working with OpenAI. Together, they want to develop a device that is less "socially disruptive" than the iPhone, but will create a computing experience with the help of AI. It is conceivable that OpenAI is also working on glasses that can be interacted with using voice and AI.

This is possible, for example, with Meta's Ray-Ban Glasses, via which Meta AI can be accessed. Google is also known to be working on a pair of glasses. This could be seen in a video shown at Google I/O in the summer . However, nothing more is known than that you will be able to talk to the glasses about what you see. Development is being carried out under the name Project Astra. Apple is also rumored to be working on smart glasses. Unlike Meta's Orion or Snap's Spectacles, however, both Google and Apple are initially working on glasses with cameras and AI assistance, not integrated screens. Where OpenAI stands is unknown.

(emw)