OpenAI has acquired the camera startup Glass Imaging for more than 300 million dollars, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, as confirmed by TechCrunch. The company’s neural imaging software enhances photos directly while taking them instead of in post-processing – at ten times the previous funding of around 30 million dollars.
Founders built the portrait mode together at Apple
Ziv Attar and Tom Bishop founded Glass Imaging in 2019 in Los Altos after both had previously worked at Apple on the camera software of the iPhone. Attar joined Apple in 2015 when the company acquired his Israeli startup LinX Imaging for around 20 million dollars; together with Bishop, he then developed the portrait mode, which blurs backgrounds, over several iPhone generations. With Glass Imaging, the two engineers developed their own process called GlassAI, which, according to SiliconANGLE, processes the raw data from the camera sensor in a single neural computation step. Noise reduction, color reconstruction, sharpening, and the merging of multiple exposures occur simultaneously rather than sequentially as in other systems. For each combination of lens and sensor, the company trains its own neural network. Prior to the acquisition, Glass Imaging had raised around 30 million dollars according to available information, including a funding round led by Insight Venture Management of 20 million dollars in May 2025, in which existing investors also participated again.
OpenAI builds its own hardware amid the Apple lawsuit
The acquisition fits into OpenAI’s growing hardware division. The company had already purchased the studio of former Apple chief designer Jony Ive for 6.5 billion dollars in stock in May 2025 and launched its first physical accessory product for developers, Codex Micro, in July. For its next major device, OpenAI is reportedly working on a donut-shaped speaker with a built-in camera, which is expected to launch in 2027 and cost more than 300 dollars. For a device with a camera, the imaging technology from Glass Imaging should be immediately usable, even though OpenAI has not yet disclosed its own plans for the technology. The acquisition also comes amid a lawsuit with Apple: The iPhone manufacturer accuses OpenAI in a lawsuit filed in July of systematically stealing hardware secrets through former Apple employees. With Attar and Bishop, two more former Apple camera engineers are joining a company whose personnel practices are already the subject of the proceedings – without the lawsuit mentioning the new deal by name.
It remains unclear whether OpenAI will first use the GlassAI technology in the planned speaker or in an as-yet-unannounced device – the company has not commented on specific product plans so far. There is no official confirmation of the purchase price from either side, so the figure remains independently unverified. The next firm date in the background of the deal is October 1, when a federal judge in Northern California will hear Apple’s lawsuit against OpenAI’s hardware business – a proceeding that is likely to influence the pace and scope of the entire device division.
