OpenAI Acquires Software Applications Incorporated, Maker of Sky (openai.com)

OpenAI has acquired Software Applications Incorporated, the team behind Sky — a macOS natural-language overlay that “floats” over your desktop, reads what’s on screen, and can take actions inside apps to help with writing, planning, coding, and task management. All Sky engineers will join OpenAI, and the company says it will fold Sky’s deep macOS integration and product craft into the ChatGPT experience. The deal was led internally by Nick Turley and Fidji Simo and approved by OpenAI’s independent Transaction and Audit Committees; a disclosure notes a passive investment in Software Applications Incorporated by a fund associated with Sam Altman. For the AI/ML community, this signals a push from conversational LLMs toward context-aware, action-oriented assistants embedded directly in desktop workflows. Sky’s key technical differentiator is its ability to understand screen context and interface with other applications — capabilities that require system-level hooks, UI parsing and app-control integrations — and OpenAI plans to leverage that to make ChatGPT not just responsive but proactive in users’ everyday tools. The acquisition accelerates real-world deployment patterns for LLMs (productivity, coding, automation) while raising practical questions around platform integration, privacy and security as AI gains broader control of local workflows.