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After years of talking about building hardware, OpenAI's first device is finally taking shape, and it is a strange one. According to Bloomberg, the company is developing a screen-free smart speaker that can physically move, pitched internally as a humanlike AI companion that lives in the home. It syncs with ChatGPT and provides home AI services, but it is clearly meant to be something more unusual than a typical smart speaker.

Sources describe the device as having a personality and being able to proactively learn about its owner over time to offer more personalised help. It would have access to your digital life, drawing from things like your emails to understand your world. And in the most unusual detail, the device reportedly includes mechanical elements that can move on their own, designed to feel like a companion and act as a physical manifestation of ChatGPT.

The device was developed with help from many former Apple engineers who worked on products like the iPhone and Mac, which is exactly where the story gets complicated. Just last week, Apple sued OpenAI for allegedly stealing its trade secrets, describing the accusations in its lawsuit as merely the tip of the iceberg and warning that more would surface during legal discovery. OpenAI has denied any wrongdoing. On this specific device, OpenAI reportedly believes the product veers significantly from anything Apple currently sells, making it unlikely to violate Apple's trade secrets.

The broader context is that consumer AI hardware is suddenly one of the hottest categories in tech. Hark, an AI lab founded by Brett Adcock, raised an oversubscribed $700 million round in May at a $6 billion valuation to build custom hardware paired with proprietary AI, without even revealing what its device looks like yet. That kind of money chasing products that do not exist yet shows just how much the industry believes the next big AI interface will be something you hold or keep in your home, not just an app on your phone.

For now, OpenAI's moving speaker is still in development with no confirmed release date. But it signals that OpenAI's hardware ambitions are real, and that its first swing is going to be a genuinely unusual one.