OpenAI, Jony Ive join forces in $6.5B acquisition

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. Google’s I/O event captured the eye of the AI world, but OpenAI just got an io of its own — snatching up ex-Apple design genius Jony Ive’s startup in a $6.5B deal.

With Altman calling their prototype the “coolest piece of technology the world can have ever seen,” could this powerhouse duo be constructing the iPhone hardware moment for AI?

ICYMI — Rowan sat down with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at its Construct 2025 conference this week for an exclusive interview on the corporate’s agentic vision. Watch the complete conversation here.

In today’s AI rundown:

• OpenAI acquires Jony Ive’s AI device startup

• Mistral’s latest open-source coding model

• Export skilled research reports as PDFs

• Shopify’s latest AI store builder, tools

• 4 latest AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

OPENAI

💰 OpenAI acquires Jony Ive’s AI device startup

The Rundown: OpenAI just announced its acquisition of io, the AI device startup co-founded by legendary Apple designer Jony Ive, in a $6.5B all-stock deal to create a brand new generation of AI-powered devices.

The small print:

• OpenAI and Ive’s io have been quietly working for 2 years on devices intended to maneuver “beyond screens,” with the primary products expected in 2026.

• This deal merges io with OpenAI, bringing in 50+ io engineers and designers, including ex-Apple veterans who helped create the iPhone and iPad.

• Ive’s design firm, LoveFrom, can even take charge of creative work across OpenAI, going beyond hardware to influence the feel and look of all products.

• The move was announced in a 9-minute video, with Altman saying Ive is the “deepest thinker he’s ever met” and Ive calling Altman a “rare visionary.”

• Altman also said he has been testing a prototype of io’s device, saying he believes it’s the “coolest piece of technology the world can have ever seen”.

Why it matters: This duo has been making moves beneath the surface for several years, but it is a loud official announcement of OpenAI’s hardware ambitions. The AI giant now has the key sauce behind lots of Apple’s revolutionary products — and can now look to crack the code on a tool that changes how users interact with AI.

TOGETHER WITH SANA

🤖 Agents in motion at AI Summit 2025

The Rundown: Sana’s enterprise AI agent platform took center stage on the AI Summit, demoed live for 500+ industry leaders. Trusted by Fortune 500 clients, Sana Agents automate hundreds of critical workflows each day.

With Sana Agents, you’ll experience:

• As much as 90% efficiency gains — launch agents in minutes, no dev bottlenecks

• Seamless integration with 100+ tools like Salesforce, Office365, and Slack

• Enterprise-grade security, full data control, and nil data retention for total peace of mind

Click here to skip the waitlist and see Sana Agents in motion.

MISTRAL

🇫🇷 Mistral’s latest open-source coding model

The Rundown: French AI startup Mistral just partnered with All Hands AI to release Devstral, a brand new open-source coding model that outperforms much larger rivals on software engineering tasks while being sufficiently small to run on a laptop or single GPU.

The small print:

• Devstral beats all open-source and a number of other closed models on benchmarks like SWE-Bench Verified, which measures real-world GitHub issues.

• The model is optimized for agentic software development, allowing it to navigate entire codebases, edit files, and solve complex coding problems.

• It is usually lightweight enough to run locally on devices like Macs and incorporates a permissive Apache 2.0 license for open usage.

• Mistral also said they expect to release a bigger agentic coding model in the approaching weeks.

Why it matters: Mistral is back to its open-source ways after the closed launch of its Medium 3 model, making it clear that advanced, agentic coding assistants are going to be available in all sizes and shapes going forward. With a strong small model and a bigger one on the best way, Mistral continues to offer strong alternatives to the AI giants.

AI TRAINING

📊 Export skilled research reports as PDFs

The Rundown: On this tutorial, you’ll learn use ChatGPT’s Deep Research to generate comprehensive reports with citations you can download as well-formatted PDFs.

Step-by-step:

1. Open ChatGPT and choose “Deep Research” from the model dropdown

2. Structure your prompt: Instruction + Context + Output Format

3. Let ChatGPT generate your comprehensive report with citations

4. Click the share icon and choose “Download as PDF” for an expert document

Pro tip: The PDF download works for each latest and past research reports in your chat history.

PRESENTED BY EMERGENT

💡 Ideas to apps with no single line of code

The Rundown: Emergent completely changes the workflow for app creators by turning descriptions into production-ready apps with no code required — allowing you to launch faster, smarter, and simpler products for every thing from quick MVPs to full-scale platforms.

Emergent’s workflow is straightforward:

• Type what you wish, like “a marketplace app with secure payments”

• See your complete application built immediately with all needed components

• Superb-tune and customize to simply tweak designs and add latest features

• Go live to real users with a single click for immediate deployments

Bring your idea to life today with code VIBEWITHRUNWAY.

SHOPIFY

💼 Shopify’s latest AI store builder, tools

The Rundown: Shopify just released its Summer ’25 Edition, full of AI-powered features, including an automatic store builder that creates complete storefronts from easy text descriptions and major upgrades to its Sidekick AI assistant.

The small print:

• Shopify’s AI store builder lets merchants type descriptions to quickly generate ready-to-launch online stores with custom designs, images, and layouts.

• The platform offers latest AI-enhanced ‘Horizon’ themes, allowing merchants to customize their store designs without coding.

• The upgraded Sidekick now supports voice conversations and screen sharing, and may handle tasks like running reports and creating discount codes.

• Recent AI shopping agent tools help merchants connect with customers browsing through conversational platforms like Perplexity for broader exposure.

Why it matters: As one in every of the first gateways to e-commerce, Shopify’s AI push is quietly an on-boarder for mainstream adoption — with hundreds of thousands of small businesses and merchants capable of reap the benefits of each AI-enhanced site constructing and a sophisticated assistant for business tasks and customer acquisition.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

• 🎬 Flow – Google’s latest AI filmmaking platform

• 🎥 Veo 3 – Google’s SOTA video model with synchronized audio capabilities

• 📱 Gemma 3n – Open-source, mobile-first model with strong capabilities

• 🎆 Imagen 4 – Recent upgraded image model with enhanced text capabilities

💼 AI Job Opportunities

• 🎨 The Rundown – Designer (Brand & Platform)

• 📂 Meta – Data Management Analyst

• 📈 Hebbia – Account Development Leadership

• 🚀 Databricks – Startup Account Executive

📰 Every thing else in AI today

ByteDance released BAGEL, a brand new open-source multimodal foundation model that mixes advanced image generation and understanding capabilities.

xAI introduced Live Search API, a brand new beta feature that permits apps leveraging Grok models to go looking real-time data from X and the web.

OpenAI expanded its agentic app-building Responses API with latest support for distant MCP servers, image generation, Code Interpreter, and more.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin said at I/O that the corporate “fully intends that Gemini will probably be the primary AGI”, believing it’ll come before 2030.

OpenAI’s data center in Abilene, TX, secured $11.6B in latest funding, expected to be the biggest utilized by the corporate because it ramps up its Stargate infrastructure project.

AI benchmarking platform LMArena announced $100M in seed funding, also revealing plans for a brand new relaunch of the location next week.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Join our next live workshop

Join our next workshop this Friday, May twenty third, at 4 PM EST with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the top of the workshop, you’ll be in control on the most recent from Google and able to use their latest tools in your personal projects.

RSVP here. Not a member? Join The Rundown University on a 14-day free trial.

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See you soon,

Rowan, Joey, Zach, Alvaro, and Jason—The Rundown’s editorial team