OpenAI’s new audio device aims to reduce screen time soon

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Screens, it seems, are exhausting. OpenAI would greatly appreciate it if you would stop staring at them. 

According to new reporting from The Information, OpenAI has spent the last couple of months quietly reorganizing its engineering, product, and research teams around one big idea: audio is the next major interface. 

Not just better voice chat, but a fully audio-first personal device expected to arrive in about a year.

This isn’t OpenAI going rogue. It’s OpenAI following the industry’s very loud hint. Voice assistants already live in over a third of US homes, and everyone from Meta to Google is doubling down on sound. 

Meta recently upgraded its Ray-Ban smart glasses to use five microphones to help users hear conversations in noisy places, effectively turning your head into a directional microphone.

 Google, meanwhile, is experimenting with “Audio Overviews” that read search results like a friendly podcast. 

Even Tesla is getting in on the action by integrating xAI’s chatbot Grok into its cars, letting drivers talk to their vehicle like it’s a very opinionated co-pilot.

Startups, of course, have taken this idea and sprinted directly into the uncanny valley. The Humane AI Pin famously burned through hundreds of millions before becoming a warning label. 

The Friend AI pendant promised companionship via a necklace and instead delivered privacy panic. 

Now, companies like Sandbar, plus another effort led by Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky, are betting on AI rings, apparently because talking to your hand is where we’re headed.

OpenAI’s own audio ambitions are more polished. 

Its next audio model, expected in early 2026, is designed to sound more natural, handle interruptions, and even talk over you, like a real human, for better or worse. 

The company is also rumored to be exploring a family of audio-first devices, possibly including glasses or screenless speakers that feel more like companions than tools.

That vision lines up neatly with hardware chief Jony Ive, who joined OpenAI’s hardware push via the acquisition of his firm io. 

Ive has long argued that devices should demand less of our attention, not more.