OpenAI eyes the wearables business: Robots, headsets, watches and a whole lot more

When you think of headphones, AR/VR headsets, and smart jewelry companies OpenAI may not come to mind. However, a new trademark filing suggests that might soon change. 

OpenAI filed a trademark application on January 31 with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), spotted by TechCrunch. The application includes an extensive list of software offerings, including cloud computing, machine learning, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) — all of which are not unexpected for a company like OpenAI. However, sprinkled within the list are a significant number of hardware products. 

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The hardware products include earphones, headphones, sunglasses, smart watches, smart bands, smart jewelry, wearable computers, wearable cameras, digital media streaming devices, virtual and augmented reality headsets, goggles, glasses, controllers, and remotes. 

Wearables

The common thread among these products is that they are all wearables, which align perfectly with OpenAI’s current offerings. One thing that large language models (LLMs) can do very well is synthesize robust amounts of data and draw insights. Then those insights can be shared in a conversational matter and formatted to be digestible. 

For that reason, many AI wellness wearables on the market are already incorporating AI within their platforms. For example, the Whoop band has an OpenAI-powered Whoop Coach, a conversational chatbot you can use to learn more about your health data and life habits. Ultimately, LLMs help users make sense of the expansive data their wearables collect. 

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Smart sunglasses and AR/VR headsets are another natural space for OpenAI to explore, as these products have a heavy AI presence. For example, the Meta Rayban AI and Meta Quest 3 headset incorporate Meta AI to assist you with everyday tasks, the way a more advanced AI assistant would. 

Other new products, such as the Halliday and Even Realities sunglasses, incorporate AI to provide similar advanced assistance, such as transcribing and translating audio in real-time. Beyond voice assistants, machine learning techniques play a role in training and enhancing the performance of AR/VR headsets for computer vision and object recognition. 

Robots

Another interesting item on the list was the reference to humanoid robots. The report specifically mentions, “User-programmable humanoid robots, not configured,” and “Humanoid robots having communication and learning functions for assisting and entertaining people.”

This mention of humanoid robots aligns with OpenAI’s new job listings on its robotics team made earlier this month. The positions include EE Sensing Engineer, Robotics Mechanical Design Engineer, and TPM Manager.

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At the time, Caitlin Kalinowski, who joined OpenAI in November to lead the robotics and consumer hardware team, said it was yet to be determined whether the focus was to be humanoid robots. She also added, in reply to a user concerned about OpenAI’s entry into hardware, “Imagine being able to send a robot to do a job that’s really dangerous for a human.”

Just yesterday, Figure AI, the robotics company, announced it was ending its partnership with OpenAI to focus on building its own in-house AI. This could now lead OpenAI to build its own robots in-house. 

What now?

OpenAI has grown ChatGPT into many different offerings and products, including ChatGPT for Enterprise, Gov and Edu, ChatGPT Search, and more. Hardware is the logical next frontier for the AI research company. However, that doesn’t mean an OpenAI hardware offering will be on the market any time soon. 

It’s common practice for companies to make these types of filings while exploring new ideas; often, such projects never see the light of day. Even if any of these projects do come to fruition, it could be a long roadmap before any are available to consumers. 

What you can expect soon is for OpenAI to continue expanding its AI software offerings, particularly in ChatGPT. In the past week alome, OpenAI unveiled its o3-mini model and Deep Research — each one advancing the degree of assistance users can get from the chatbot.