So OpenAI wants to sell you a talking donut for $400. No, really.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the guy who usually spends his time leaking Apple's roadmap to the world, has pivoted to leaking someone else's roadmap for once. According to his latest reporting, OpenAI's long-rumored hardware device is shaping up to be a ring-shaped, battery-powered smart speaker about the size of a hockey puck, and it might cost you $300 to $400.
That is, to put it mildly, a lot of money for a smart speaker.
The device has been described as the "physical manifestation" of ChatGPT, which is either exciting or unsettling depending on how you feel about your AI assistant having a physical body now. Bloomberg reports it will be donut-shaped, built from "high-quality metal," and designed with a "premium look" so you can carry it around the house and set it on a bedside table or kitchen counter depending on your mood.
Here's the part that raises eyebrows: it reportedly has "moving parts." Not screen, not buttons, actual moving components that seem intended to make the thing feel more lifelike and engaging, according to Gurman's sources. It won't have a display, but it will pack a camera system and sensors to keep tabs on its surroundings.
Translate that into plain English and you get a portable, battery-powered gadget with a camera watching your kitchen counter, priced like a mid-range laptop accessory.
Context matters here. Amazon's smart speaker lineup, the category OpenAI is apparently trying to leapfrog, ranges from about $40 to $240. OpenAI's device would blow past even the priciest Echo by a wide margin.
That's not an accident. OpenAI spent $6.5 billion acquiring io, the hardware startup led by Jony Ive, the famed former Apple designer, specifically to kickstart this hardware push. The actual device is being developed with LoveFrom, Ive's design studio. When you drop that kind of money to get into a new business, you tend to want premium pricing to match, even if the market you're entering has a rough track record of profitability.
And that's the tension worth sitting with. OpenAI has real incentive to want a foothold in your living room. The company that gave the world ChatGPT in November 2022 and helped kick off the entire generative AI boom is now valued at roughly $500 billion after an October 2025 share sale, and Microsoft has poured more than $13 billion into it. A hardware device that keeps ChatGPT physically present in your home, rather than trapped in a browser tab or phone app, fits neatly into that ambition.
But wanting a foothold and getting one are different things. Smart speakers have never been a slam-dunk business. Amazon and Google have both sold Echo and Nest devices for years largely as loss leaders to build ecosystem lock-in, not as standalone profit centers. OpenAI charging a premium for a first-generation product with no display, in a category known for razor-thin margins, is a bold bet.
OpenAI's hardware ambitions haven't exactly been smooth sailing either. The company is currently being sued by Apple, which has accused it of stealing trade secrets. OpenAI denies any wrongdoing, but the timing is awkward: the company trying to out-hardware Apple is getting dragged into court by Apple while doing it.
It's also worth remembering that OpenAI has had its share of internal turbulence, including the brief ouster of CEO Sam Altman in November 2023 and a wave of AI safety researchers departing the company throughout 2024. None of that is directly about the speaker, but it's the backdrop against which OpenAI is trying to convince consumers to trust it with a camera-equipped device in their homes.
An expensive, camera-equipped, moving-parts donut is a strange first swing at hardware, and the price point makes it stranger. Gurman himself notes that testing the market reaction to a rumored $300 to $400 price before the 2027 launch gives OpenAI room to backpedal on cost. That reads like a company that isn't fully confident in the number either.
I'd bet this price drops before launch, or the feature set grows to justify it. Right now, "AI donut with unexplained moving parts" for the cost of a game console is a tough sell, no matter how good the underlying ChatGPT integration is.
The device reportedly won't launch until sometime in 2027, so there's plenty of time for details, and pricing, to shift. We'll be watching for the next leak.
*Disclosure: This post is based on reporting from TechCrunch and Engadget, both citing Bloomberg's Mark Gurman as the primary source. No pricing or specs have been officially confirmed by OpenAI.*
---
SEO title: OpenAI Smart Speaker Reportedly Costs $300-$400
Meta description: New details suggest OpenAI's donut-shaped ChatGPT speaker, made with Jony Ive's LoveFrom, could cost $300 to $400 when it launches in 2027.
Slug: openai-smart-speaker-price-300-400
Primary keyword: OpenAI smart speaker price
Tags: OpenAI, smart speakers, AI hardware, Jony Ive, ChatGPT
Disclosure: This article is based on third-party reporting from TechCrunch and Engadget, both of which cite Bloomberg as their primary source. No claims have been confirmed directly by OpenAI. This post contains no affiliate links.
META BLOCK