OpenAI Should Make a Phone (www.ft.com)

I couldn’t load the original page (JavaScript error), but based on the headline “OpenAI Should Make a Phone,” the piece likely argues that OpenAI building a smartphone would be a logical next step to deliver tightly integrated, always-available AI experiences. The core thesis: a purpose-built device could combine on-device inference (for privacy and low latency) with cloud-backed models (for heavy lifting), optimized hardware (NPUs/accelerators), and deep software integration (system-level APIs, voice-first interfaces, and multimodal sensors) to outcompete current assistants tethered to general-purpose OSes. For users this promises faster, more private assistants, richer multimodal interactions, and the convenience of models that understand context across apps and sensors. For the AI/ML community the implications are substantial: it would push demand for mobile-friendly model architectures, aggressive compression/quantization, efficient fine-tuning pipelines, and federated or split-compute techniques. Hardware-software co-design would accelerate, as would new benchmarks for on-device multimodal performance, power-efficiency, and safety. There are trade-offs and challenges — battery, thermal constraints, update and moderation policies, and regulatory scrutiny over data/control — but a credible OpenAI phone could reshape model deployment patterns, spur innovation in edge ML tooling, and force platform-level conversations about model governance and ecosystem openness.