OpenAI buys smartphone camera maker Glass Imaging for $300 million, report says

OpenAI has reportedly purchased Glass Imaging in a transaction valued at more than $300 million, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The startup, which started in 2019 and operates out of Los Altos, California, had previously secured roughly $30 million in investor funding.

Glass Imaging was founded by Ziv Attar and Tom Bishop, engineers who previously led the team behind Apple’s Portrait Mode. The company applies neural networks to learn the characteristics of specific camera systems — for example, the different modules used across smartphone models — so the device can produce improved images at the moment a photo is taken rather than relying on post-capture editing.

OpenAI did not immediately provide a comment in response to requests, and the report frames the acquisition against the company’s broader interest in hardware. The ChatGPT maker has been linked in reports to projects involving smartphones, earbuds, and AI companion devices, and last year the company acquired Jony Ive’s firm in a separate deal reported at $6.5 billion after Altman and Ive disclosed collaboration on a hardware startup called io.

The purchase brings specialized computational imaging capabilities into OpenAI’s portfolio at a time when AI-driven camera enhancements are becoming central to consumer device differentiation. By folding Glass Imaging’s technology and talent into its operations, OpenAI would gain expertise that targets a technical bottleneck in smartphone photography: improving results within the physical limits of small camera modules.