OPENAI’S FIRST HARDWARE PRODUCT IS A MOVING SCREENLESS SPEAKER BUILT TO LIVE IN YOUR HOME AS AN AI COMPANION — MADE BY THE ENGINEERS WHO BUILT THE IPHONE OpenAI’s first consumer hardware product is a screenless smart speaker with mechanical parts that allow it to physically move, according to a Bloomberg report published Monday. The device is being described internally as a humanlike AI companion designed to live permanently in someone’s home, running the full capabilities of ChatGPT to control smart home appliances, respond to messages, answer questions, and interpret its surroundings through a built-in camera and sensor array. The product was developed with heavy involvement from former Apple engineers who worked on the iPhone and Mac. Its design is meant to feel like a companion rather than a gadget, a deliberate philosophical break from the screen-forward approach that has defined consumer technology for two decades. A built-in battery allows it to move from room to room without plugging in. OpenAI is eyeing a public debut before the end of this year, with a full commercial launch in 2027. No official announcement has been made, and the company has not confirmed the report. The timing is uncomfortable. Apple filed a trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI last week, accusing the company of using proprietary knowledge acquired through a technical partnership to accelerate its hardware program. OpenAI denies the allegations. What is beyond dispute is that the former Apple engineers building this device learned hardware design at Apple, and Apple knows it. The lawsuit is almost certainly not the last word. Keywords: OpenAI hardware device, ChatGPT speaker, OpenAI AI companion, OpenAI first consumer product