OpenAI's Sam Altman says your computer isn't built for AI — so it's creating something entirely new
According to Altman, our current laptops and phones were designed for a pre-AI world, and to unlock the next generation of intelligent agents, we need a 'fundamentally new' kind of computer.
That's precisely what OpenAI is now working on: a new class of AI-first hardware built from the ground up to support always-on, context-aware assistants that live with you, not just on your screen.
Altman believes that current computers can only handle basic AI tasks, such as autocorrect or voice dictation.
However, for AI to become truly useful, it needs to understand your environment, schedule, and preferences, and act on that knowledge in real-time.
That means a device that's deeply aware of context, ultra-responsive and optimized for tasks AI is just beginning to master. Tasks like helping you book travel, summarizing pages, answering emails, or even planning your day from start to finish are all types of activities an "AI computer" might perform. While details are still under wraps, here's what we're likely to see based on OpenAI's moves and Altman's vision:
Imagine something more intuitive than your smartphone and more like a companion that's always working in the background to keep your life running smoothly.
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To pull this off, OpenAI isn't going to do it alone. The company recently acquired io, a hardware startup co-founded by former Apple design legend Jony Ive, in a deal reportedly worth $6.5 billion.
It's also part of Project Stargate, a $500 billion joint venture with SoftBank and Oracle designed to build the infrastructure needed to support massive AI models and devices at scale.
Together, these moves point to something big: not just a device, but an ecosystem including hardware, software and supercomputing all optimized for the AI age.
Altman has hinted at an AI-first operating system, potentially subscription-based, where intelligent agents replace the app-based interface we're used to. And now that OpenAI is no longer 'compute-constrained,' the company has the resources to actually build it.
If successful, this could mean:
This is a vision of ambient computing, where AI fades into the background, while quietly making everything work better.
OpenAI is going beyond chatbots to now reinventing the computer itself. If it pulls this off, we may be looking at the most significant leap in personal technology since the iPhone.
Whether it's a wearable, a pocket device, or something entirely new, one thing is clear: the future of AI won't just live in your browser. It'll live in your life.
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