(OpenAI)

AIs Wide Shut

OpenAI says its AI device will be “multimodal” but doesn’t give many more details

Here’s what we know about the Jony Ive and OpenAI device so far.

11/6/25 8:34AM

In an interview at The Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar was most clear about what she couldn’t say about the company’s forthcoming AI device. She wouldn’t say how the device, which former Apple design lead Jony Ive is helping to develop, would look, how she uses it, or whether or not it would require a phone.

What she did say was that it would be “multimodal.”

“In a multimodal world for AI, what is beautiful about these models is they are as good through text as they are through being able to talk, language, to be able to listen, auditorily, to be able to visually see,” Friar said.

We might be reading too deep, but to us that suggests the device will have a keyboard, speakers, and a screen... much like a phone!

Cellphones, she said, have accustomed us to looking down at our screens and “talking with our thumbs.”

“I’m looking forward to being able to bring something into the world that I think starts to shift that,” Friar said. She added that she believes “it will open the door to technology that is being shut to many, many people,” and cited a visually impaired parent as an example of someone who might have trouble using a smartphone.

To review what’s been reported about the personal assistant AI device so far:

It will be “palm-sized” or “roughly the size of a smartphone.”
The device will be “always on” so, unlike Amazon’s Alexa, it won’t need a wake word.
It’s meant to be a “companion” for everyday life.
Users will communicate with the device “through a camera, microphone and speaker.”
It will be “fully aware of a user’s surroundings and life, will be unobtrusive, [and] able to rest in one’s pocket or on one’s desk,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
Developers are conceiving of it as a third device people will need, in addition to an iPhone and a MacBook Pro, but one that isn’t a phone or glasses.
It’s meant to wean users off screens.
It could include headphones or cameras.
OpenAI plans to ship 100 million of these devices “faster than any company has ever shipped 100 million of something new before.”
The release date is expected to be by late 2026.
It’s not going to kill the iPhone... yet. “In the same way that the smartphone didn’t make the laptop go away, I don’t think our first thing is going to make the smartphone go away,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Bloomberg. “It is a totally new kind of thing.”

Rani Molla1h

Meta says it’s delivered new AI models internally this month and they’re “very good”

Meta’s last AI model release, Llama 4, was marred by delays and accusations of rigged benchmarks, but the company says the latest models built by its Superintelligence Labs team look promising. CTO Andrew Bosworth told reporters at the World Economic Forum that the team delivered new models internally in January and they’re “very good.”

Bosworth didn’t specify what the models are, though The Wall Street Journal has reported that Meta is working on a large language model and an AI image and video model code-named Avocado and Mango, respectively.

Exclusive: Meta's new AI team delivered first key models internally this month, CTO says

Rani Molla2h

Two charts that show why Amazon is building a giant physical store

This week Amazon received approval to build a hybrid big-box store and fulfillment center outside Chicago that’s roughly twice the size of a typical Target. Why would the e-commerce giant want to wade into a costly and cumbersome physical store, especially after earlier brick-and-mortar iterations like Amazon Go have failed?

There are at least two reasons. First, despite e-commerce’s rapid growth, the vast majority of retail purchases still happen in physical stores, according to Census Bureau data:

Second, Amazon’s own customers regularly shop at competing big-box retailers: Consumer Intelligence Research Partners found that 93% have also shopped at Walmart. And as Amazon pushes further into groceries — a category still dominated by in-person shopping — CIRP estimates that basically all Amazon customers buy groceries elsewhere.

Jon Keegan

See for yourself just how massive Meta’s Hyperion data center is

It’s hard to overstate just how massive Meta’s Richland Parish, Louisiana, data center site is. Use this tool to compare it to where you live.

Jon Keegan17h

OpenAI rolls out age prediction system ahead of allowing adult content

OpenAI is rolling out a new “age prediction” feature for ChatGPT users. The company will look at various signals from users to predict if a user is underage.

In a blog post, the company said:

“The model looks at a combination of behavioral and account-level signals, including how long an account has existed, typical times of day when someone is active, usage patterns over time, and a user’s stated age.”

If the system suspects the user is a minor, it will reduce content with graphic violence, harmful viral challenges, sexual or romantic role-play, depictions of self-harm, and material promoting “extreme beauty standards, unhealthy dieting, or body shaming.”

If a user is incorrectly flagged as under 18, they will have to submit a selfie to an identity verification service to have the restrictions removed.

An age verification system is part of OpenAI’s plan to reduce harmful mental health encounters with the chatbot, while also allowing ChatGPT to generate “erotica” in the near future.

Our approach to age prediction

“The model looks at a combination of behavioral and account-level signals, including how long an account has existed, typical times of day when someone is active, usage patterns over time, and a user’s stated age.”

If a user is incorrectly flagged as under 18, they will have to submit a selfie to an identity verification service to have the restrictions removed.

An age verification system is part of OpenAI’s plan to reduce harmful mental health encounters with the chatbot, while also allowing ChatGPT to generate “erotica” in the near future.

Rani Molla22h

Google’s YouTube maintains its top spot as streaming accounts for nearly half of all TV-watching time

People spent a record 47.5% of their TV-watching time on streaming platforms in December, according to new data from Nielsen, up from the previous record of 47.3% in July. Google’s YouTube once again was the most popular streaming service by time spent, but Netflix’s share inched slightly upward to 9% from 8.8% in July, while YouTube’s fell to 12.7% from 13.4%. The jump was largely thanks to “Stranger Things,” which was the most watched streaming title last month.