Not much has been revealed by OpenAI about its AI hardware product since announcing the parntership with Jony Ive last year, but there might have been an clue as to what it is in its new Superbowl ad.
OpenAI’s new Superbowl ad, which ended with the message “You can just build things”, seems to be a typical tech company ad. It shows people building all kinds of things, starting from the simple to the progressively more complex, and ends with the message while advertising Codex, OpenAI’s new coding platform. But there’s also an interesting detail to the ad that doesn’t seem to be related to Codex at all.
The entire ad in shot as though it’s through the eyes of the user. All the footage is in first person. This is incidentally how things would look if they were seen through, say, a pair of AI-powered glasses.
Thus far, rumours around OpenAI’s hardware product have indicated that it’s either something you keep on your desk, or a pair of earbuds. But it seems unlikely that a new AI product releasing even today would have a voice-only interface — AI models have become exceptionally good at identifying and understanding images, and can process them in real-time. And the best way to access what the user is seeing doesn’t need someone to reinvent the wheel — it is best done through a pair of smart glasses.
So it does seem that OpenAI’s product could end up being a pair of smart glasses. There are some smart glasses already around — Meta has a product, and Google will launch one this year. It does seem like the most obvious form-factor for an AI company to come up with, and one that OpenAI will likely choose. And OpenAI’s Superbowl ad — filmed entirely as though it’s shot through a pair of smart glasses — might be the most definitive clue that that’s the case.