Late last year, Sam Altman discussed the possibility of spinning off the robotics and consumer hardware divisions into separate entities. The idea was that each could raise its own funding and operate more independently from the company’s core business.
Unfortunately for Sam, it turned out that even after being spun off, these divisions would probably not disappear from the parent company’s financial results. In other words, OpenAI would undergo a complex restructuring process and gain almost no accounting benefit from it. So the plan was abandoned.
Why was a split considered?
ChatGPT has long ceased to be the only product in OpenAI’s portfolio. Over the past year, it has built significant positions in both hardware and physical robotics, and both areas are capital-intensive in ways that differ fundamentally from the software business.
This difference was precisely why a split made sense at first glance. Fast-growing divisions generally find it easier to raise money independently, investors can assess them according to their own metrics, and the parent company can present a cleaner business story. But when the legal and financial teams examined the details, they found that OpenAI operated as a single integrated organization regardless of how its structure might change on paper.
The consumer hardware division was established in May 2025, when OpenAI acquired the startup io Products for $6.5 billion in stock. Jony Ive, Apple’s former chief designer, joined as creative director. Altman has revealed only fragments about the upcoming device: it will be small enough to fit in a pocket, and it will maintain constant awareness of its surroundings.
The device could appear as early as the end of February 2027. But the hardware ambitions do not end with a single device. In October 2025, OpenAI announced a partnership with Broadcom to develop its own artificial intelligence chips.
Another area is robotics
Robotics is not a new area for OpenAI; the company has been working in the field for several years. In 2024, things began to take a more concrete shape. OpenAI began a research collaboration with Coco Robotics, a startup focused on robot-powered delivery. "We’re trying to figure out how to be really successful in robotics," Altman said last month on the Core Memory podcast.
Its partners also include Figure, a startup that makes humanoid robots. OpenAI is collaborating with the company on specialized artificial intelligence models and has participated in its funding as an investor. OpenAI is also helping fund the Norwegian company 1X Technologies, which develops robots for industrial use.
Both divisions occupy an unusual position within OpenAI. They operate separately from the rest of the company and report directly to Altman. Employees describe them as independent startups that simply happen to be under the same roof as OpenAI.
Inspiration from Alphabet
Although the split was abandoned, the idea of structural change has not disappeared from consideration. One option OpenAI is considering is a model inspired by Google’s 2015 reorganization into Alphabet. Under a single holding company, it separated its dominant search business from riskier projects such as Waymo and Verily.
In its financial statements, Alphabet separates revenue from established products such as search, YouTube, and cloud services from the operating losses of speculative bets. This allows investors to assess the core business and experimental projects separately. Meta Platforms opted for similar transparency without structural changes when it began separately disclosing the losses of its metaverse division. Microsoft does the same with Xbox and LinkedIn.
Sources: finance.yahoo.com and wsj.com
