{"id":294266,"date":"2026-02-21T00:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T00:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/294266\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T00:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T00:04:14","slug":"openai-might-be-making-a-smart-speaker-that-no-one-asked-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/294266\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI Might Be Making a Smart Speaker That No One Asked for"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you were looking around at the smart speake<\/a>r field and feeling like the whole idea of an audio device with microphones and a voice assistant has stagnated, I have some pertinent news for you: it apparently has.<\/p>\n

If a report from The Information<\/a> about OpenAI\u2019s first hardware is any indication, we have run out of ideas, folks. Per The Information:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe speaker will have a camera, enabling it to take in information about its users andtheir surroundings, such as items on a nearby table or conversations people are having in the vicinity, according to one of the people. It will also allow people to buy things by identifying them with a facial recognition feature similar to Apple\u2019s Face ID, the people said.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, if we\u2019re to believe the reporting, OpenAI\u2019s major contributions to the smart speaker space are being able to look at objects on a table and online shopping. I\u2019ll concede that the first one is almost novel. Computer vision isn\u2019t new\u2014Amazon\u2019s Echo Show<\/a>, its smart home hub with a screen and camera, can identify objects already using its \u201cShow and Tell\u201d feature<\/a>\u2014but it\u2019s just catching on. That being said, I don\u2019t know that this particular example screams \u201cuseful.\u201d Computer vision, at least in my experience, is kind of a trap. It\u2019s novel, but not altogether useful on a consistent basis\u2014at least in gadgets like the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses<\/a>. The best use case here will likely be for accessibility purposes, helping blind or low-vision people identify things.<\/p>\n

\"EchoDevices like Amazon\u2019s Echo Show (pictured) already kind of do the stuff OpenAI is reportedly pursuing. @ Alex Cranz \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

As for shopping, well\u2026 that\u2019s definitely already a thing. If you own a smart speaker made by Amazon, you can already add things to your cart using just your voice and have those things delivered to your house without ever opening an app\u2014there are voice passcodes to verify purchases instead. So, I\u2019m going to give OpenAI zero points on that front for originality.<\/p>\n

If anything, I also suspect that a smart speaker with a camera and face recognition would be used to deliver some kind of personalized information. You might, for example, be able to walk up to your smart speaker and have it give you information about your calendar for that day or some other kind of customizable notifications. Whether you trust OpenAI with your face and access to looking around your room is another story entirely, but it would appear the company thinks you\u2019ll be chill with it.<\/p>\n

If those ideas aren\u2019t original enough for you, The Information reports that OpenAI has some other tricks up its sleeve, including the potential to release smart glasses as well as a (drum roll) smart lamp. I\u2019ll admit, I\u2019m weirdly intrigued by the smart lamp part of things (Apple has also dabbled with the idea<\/a>), but if the lackluster potential features of its smart speaker are anything to go by, I wouldn\u2019t get your hopes up.<\/p>\n

One thing is for certain, and that\u2019s that OpenAI seems to have its sights trained on a lot of different categories. There were already reports that the company is pursuing a wearable in an earbuds-like form factor<\/a>, for example, as well as a pendant, and even a pen<\/a>. The playbook, if I\u2019m to read between the lines, is that there is no form factor that\u2019s off the table necessarily, except for maybe a phone. I look forward to seeing OpenAI\u2019s vast resources flow into making the world\u2019s most sophisticated smart pants or whatever inane idea that only OpenAI\u2019s deep wallet can cook up next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you were looking around at the smart speaker field and feeling like the whole idea of an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,33070,111,139,69,620,7792,20548,17425,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-294266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-leaks","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-openai","16":"tag-rumors","17":"tag-smart-glasses","18":"tag-smart-speakers","19":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}