Did Sam Altman and Jony Ive Steal This Startup’s Idea?
A stealthy Google X startup just hit OpenAI with a knockout lawsuit—forcing Sam Altman to pull every trace of their new ‘io’ hardware brand from the internet.
Good morning AI entrepreneurs & enthusiasts,
Jony Ive and Sam Altman’s headline-making AI hardware collaboration, 'io', has just been wiped clean from the internet—thanks to a court order from a lesser-known startup that says OpenAI took more than just creative inspiration.
A Google X offshoot called iyO claims suspicious meetings and a strikingly similar product. Could this be a case of visionary innovation—or a polished replica?
In today’s AI news:
OpenAI erases 'io' brand amid trademark fight
ElevenLabs unveils its own voice assistant
Reddit eyes Sam Altman’s World ID for user verification
Top Tools & Quick News
OpenAI pulls 'io' over legal pressure
The news: All promotional materials tied to OpenAI’s $6.5B acquisition of Jony Ive's AI device startup, io, were abruptly removed, following a court-ordered injunction stemming from a trademark lawsuit filed by iyO, a Google-backed spinoff.
The details:
iyO develops hardware that enables screen-free interaction with devices through voice and AI. Their flagship product, the iyO One, is an AI-powered, earbud-computer hybrid.
The lawsuit alleges that Sam Altman and Jony Ive’s LoveFrom team met with iyO in both 2022 and early 2025 to review confidential product designs and business strategies.
The court found iyO’s claims of likely consumer confusion credible enough to issue a temporary injunction, requiring OpenAI to pull all references to "io."
OpenAI complied with the order, removing videos and blog posts but asserts that the complaint is "completely meritless" and their hardware development continues under a rebrand.
Why it matters: While unlikely to stop the project entirely, this suit calls into question the originality of OpenAI's hardware initiative. Allegations that LoveFrom requested iyO's product details and then launched a nearly identical concept under a confusingly similar name have sparked scrutiny and damaged perceptions of ethical conduct in elite AI circles.
ElevenLabs launches '11ai' assistant
The news: ElevenLabs introduced 11ai, a native voice-first assistant that goes beyond Q&A to execute tasks within your workflow by integrating directly with productivity tools via Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP).
The details:
The early alpha version integrates with Perplexity, Linear, Slack, Notion, Salesforce, Gmail, Zapier, and HubSpot, allowing users to complete tasks through simple voice commands.
Developers can add custom MCP endpoints to tailor integrations to internal tools.
Built on ElevenLabs’ text-to-speech infrastructure, it supports over 5,000 voices and voice cloning.
During the alpha phase, 11ai is free to use, while the team gathers feedback for refinement.
Why it matters: ElevenLabs has long led in voice generation tech. With 11ai, they take the next step—offering a voice assistant that acts, integrates, and delivers hands-free productivity. It positions itself as a powerful alternative to outdated assistants like Siri, tailored for professionals and task-based workflows.
Reddit considers World ID for human checks
The news: Reddit is reportedly in advanced talks to integrate World ID—Sam Altman’s iris-based identity system developed by Tools for Humanity—as a way to verify human users while preserving anonymity.
The details:
Iris scans produce a unique cryptographic World ID token without storing personal data or biometric images.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has hinted at a hybrid model to preserve user privacy while addressing bot concerns.
The Orb scanner refuses scans from minors, ensuring age compliance.
If adopted, Reddit could become the first major U.S. social platform to roll out biometric authentication at scale.
Why it matters: As AI bots flood social platforms, distinguishing real users from synthetic ones becomes mission-critical. While privacy advocates remain cautious, World ID’s decentralized architecture offers a novel way to enforce proof-of-personhood—positioning Reddit as a testbed for a new digital identity paradigm.
Todays's Top Tools:
Kimi-Researcher – SOTA research AI from Moonshot
Voice Design – MiniMax’s multilingual voice model
Mistral Small 3.2 – Stronger instructions, fewer errors
Quick News:
Disney is negotiating IP licenses with OpenAI while suing Midjourney for unauthorized use of iconic characters like Elsa and Darth Vader.
DeepSeek is allegedly aiding China's military and bypassing U.S. chip export bans.
Google unveils Magenta RealTime: a real-time, open-weights music generation AI built for live performance.
Meta explored acquisitions of Runway, Safe Superintelligence, [Thinking Machines], and Perplexity AI.
SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son pitched a $1T Arizona AI megahub to TSMC and Samsung.
Microsoft launches Mu, an on-device SLM optimized for agentic tasks in Windows Copilot+ PCs.
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Decentralized ID could future-proof Reddit against AI spam, but hardware logistics are tricky. Will Orb scanners pop up at events, or will there be a remote alternative?
An iris hash instead of traditional KYC is a bold experiment. I’m keen to see whether regulators treat this as biometric data even without retained images.