Powered by OpenAI Funding, Opal Develops an AI-Powered Audio Device

Little San Francisco’s famously well-crafted, well-crafted introduction web cams now they are competing to stay AI hardware company at this time.

Opal camera it is rebranding Opal Electronics and will expand its products beyond webcams to more consumer devices, some of which will be AI-focused. It aims to emulate Sony Electronics as a consumer electronics brand by focusing on design and culture, not just technology.

The innovation was made possible thanks to a $40 million Series B round of funding from OpenAI. Some money points It was first reported in 2024but the deal was closed in the first quarter of 2025. Investors in Opal include Samsung, Peter Thiel, Seven Seven Six (Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital firm), and the famous tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee (known as MKBHD), among others, according to a source close to the deal. Opal is now worth about $275 million.

Opal Electronics declined to comment. OpenAI did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was an early customer and fan of Opal’s original C1 web engine, so much so that his team visited Opal’s offices in 2022 to inquire about OpenAI’s Whisper. example of word translation it can run locally on Opal cameras for Zoom subtitles. The source, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, says that at the end of this meeting OpenAI showed the Opal team some visuals. of ChatGPT. It had such an impact on the attendees that the company decided to turn it into a research lab.

Since then, Opal has been working on AI audio for the past few years. This, in turn, is what led Altman to invest in Opal. It will be launched in the next three to four months and is currently being tested by Altman, researchers at OpenAI, and administrators at. xAI, Thinking Machinesand Anthropic. It is not known if it is wearable, although the source says that it is a well-known group, and that it is not designed to compete with the iPhone.

OpenAI was closely associated with the former iPhone maker Jony Ive and his company, LoveFrom, to research hardware that can run ChatGPT and other OpenAI applications. It is still unclear what it is specific hardware strategy is for OpenAI, but its first product is said to be similar a wise speakerwhich is expected to be launched in early 2027.

Opal’s audio will be based on a real AI lab – the source could not explain what – but Opal is in talks with OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, allowing users to modify their favorite models. Opal Electronics plans to release two more products in the next 12 months.

Courtesy of Opal Electronics