OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said it’s hard to describe what it feels like to use the company’s heavily guarded AI hardware devices.
“It feels very natural, but it feels very endearing,” Friar said in a live interview at the All In Podcast team’s Liquidity Summit in California.
When her co-hosts on the All-In podcast asked her if Jony Ive’s devices were earbuds, she joked about the legendary iPhone designer’s possible response.
“If I said it was an earphone, Johnny would come and steal my teenage son,” Friar said. “Maybe I could give it to him.”
The monk described his visceral reaction when using the device.
“What Johnny and the team are really good at is bringing humanity to devices,” she said. “I can’t really explain it, but that’s how I feel when I see it.”
OpenAI has remained largely silent about what the device will look like, and speculation is rampant online. In February, OpenAI quickly condemned a purported leaked ad featuring actor Alexander Skarsgård and showing an orb-shaped device and earphones as “totally fake.” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the device is not a phone, putting an end to speculation.
Even more certain is OpenAI’s timeline for launching its first hardware device. Monk said he has already tried the device. She said OpenAI would announce the device by “the end of this year.” OpenAI previously said in a legal filing that it did not plan to ship the device until February 2027.
In May 2025, OpenAI announced an acquisition. Ive’s AI hardware startupIO, approximately $6.5 billion. Altman and Ive also said they are working on a “family of AI products.”
Friar said good design can make technology feel different.
“Technology can get very mechanical, but we all know that good design just makes everything pale, right?” she says, adding, “Simple is hard.”
Altman and Ive have previously said they want consumers to find the device appealing enough to want to eat it.
“I remember him saying it once early on, ‘You should be able to see the design right away, right?'” Altman said at an on-stage event with Ive in November. “I don’t remember if he said he wanted to lick it or take a bite or anything like that.”