Over the years, Stuff has seen several companies with no business making phones make the attempt anyway. OpenAI and ChatGPT might be the next to step into those illustrious ranks, possibly alongside Chinese brand Dreame.
A report from Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst who tends to focus on Apple updates, suggests that OpenAI is targeting a 2028 release of dedicated phone hardware. There are no tech specs or images yet, just talk. But that talk claims that MediaTek and Qualcomm are involved on the hardware side.
ChatGPT phones it in
A Chinese company called Luxshare is also supposed to be involved in manufacturing. The company is supposedly involved in making Apple’s Vision Pro spatial hardware, so it’s got the ability to make a premium product. Whether it’ll pull off a ChatGPT smartphone is another matter.
Kuo says that OpenAI “may bundle subscriptions with hardware and build a new AI agent ecosystem with developers.” The plan makes sense. The company’s not going to make a standard phone when it can jam it to its gills with ChatGPT. The central nature of the modern smartphone means the suspected hardware could become a heavy source of user data for the company, in addition to bringing new users into the company’s ecosystem.
What a ChatGPT phone could look like or what it would actually do is unknown at this point. It’s certain to involve AI agents, with hardware capable of supporting it, but how different it would be from modern devices with their increasing range of AI applications remains to be seen.
Or not. As with many hardware projects, if it’s not officially announced, it may never happen. Still, this is something we can see Sam Altman’s company giving a shot. They’re already considering earbuds, after all.
