OpenAI acquires smartphone camera tech firm Glass Imaging for $300 million

OpenAI has acquired Glass Imaging, a company that uses artificial intelligence to improve smartphone camera image quality, in a deal valued at over $300 million, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing its sources.

Glass Imaging was founded in 2019 and is based in Los Altos, California. Before the acquisition, it had raised roughly $30 million in funding from investors.

Former Apple engineers behind the technology

The company was founded by Ziv Attar and Tom Bishop, two former Apple engineers who previously led the team behind Apple's Portrait Mode feature. That background directly shapes their work at Glass Imaging, where AI is used to overcome the physical size limitations of smartphone cameras.

Rather than applying AI to edit photos after they are captured, Glass Imaging uses neural networks that learn the characteristics of individual camera systems — such as the varying cameras found across different smartphone models — to produce better images at the moment the shutter is triggered.

OpenAI has not immediately responded to requests for comment on the deal.

Context: OpenAI's hardware ambitions

The ChatGPT maker is reportedly working on its own hardware products, including smartphones, earbuds, and AI companion devices. In 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and renowned Apple designer Jony Ive disclosed they had been collaborating on a device startup called io, around the time OpenAI acquired Ive's company for $6.5 billion.