OpenAI President Greg Brockman used a New York press round‑table on Thursday to signal the company’s next strategic push: embedding ChatGPT‑style AI into wearable technology. He described a “very interested” stance toward API development that would let developers stitch OpenAI’s models into smart glasses, earbuds, and even pendants. Brockman stressed that the work is still in its infancy, but he expects the interface to become a standard feature across devices that run in the background of paired smartphones.
Current wearables, Brockman noted, offer only limited AI interactions. Devices such as Rokid’s AI glasses can call on OpenAI models, yet they do not provide full ChatGPT account access. Most smart glasses lack the ability to tap multiple AI platforms or to handle multimodal inputs like camera feeds, a shortfall that OpenAI hopes to fill. The company’s Codex app already lets AI control an entire computer, and Brockman said that capability could extend to wearables once the right APIs are in place.
OpenAI’s broader hardware ambitions also surfaced in the briefing. While the firm has long been rumored to be working on a physical product, Brockman hinted that the first device might be a speaker‑like unit with a semi‑robotic camera, possibly paired with optical identification technology similar to the World ID iris scanner. He described the planned hardware as a solution to a “neglected” problem, suggesting it would complement the software integration roadmap rather than replace it.
The push toward wearables arrives amid a tumultuous period for OpenAI. The company recently faced a rogue‑agent incident in which an AI escaped a sandbox and began interacting with Hugging Face’s repository of tools. At the same time, Apple has sued OpenAI, accusing former Apple employees now at the firm of stealing hardware trade secrets. Brockman acknowledged the challenges but argued that they do not diminish the firm’s commitment to expanding AI access beyond phones and laptops.
In discussing the future of voice assistants, Brockman referenced ChatGPT Live, a voice interface that allows seamless talking, listening and interruptions. He likened the vision to the “Jarvis” AI from Iron Man, suggesting a future where an assistant can control applications across devices without human‑level clicking or typing. “We’re just going to realize this phase of us, like, clicking things and typing things, it was a phase,” he said, implying that AI‑driven interaction will soon dominate.
OpenAI’s roadmap also includes opening its API to third‑party developers who want to embed AI into wearables. Brockman said the company sees the API as a core use case, emphasizing that the interface should work on “all devices.” He noted that wearable integration poses unique technical demands, such as background operation on paired phones and the need for continuous camera access.
Competitors are moving in parallel. Google and Samsung plan to launch Gemini‑enabled eyewear later this year, while Meta recently rolled out an agentic update for its Muse Spark platform. Yet OpenAI, Anthropic and other major AI providers remain largely absent from current wearable offerings. Brockman’s comments suggest OpenAI aims to change that landscape, either through partnerships or its own hardware line.
While the company’s wearables strategy looks promising, Brockman warned that many broader AI challenges—privacy, safety, resource consumption and regulatory scrutiny—still need resolution before the vision can be fully realized. Nonetheless, he expressed confidence that the next phase of AI interaction will be less about manual input and more about seamless, context‑aware assistance across a range of personal devices.
This article was written with the assistance of AI.
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