OpenAI's $6.5B Bet, Perplexity’s Brand Play, and Google’s New Tools | Off Frame #001
OpenAI bets $6.5B on Jony Ive’s screenless future. Perplexity straps into F1. Google goes cinematic. And product design feels more like world-building by the day.
Hello – thanks for stopping by.
Off Frame is a weekly radar on the new aesthetics of intelligent tech.
We explore how design, culture, and interface are evolving in an AI-native world – and what it means for the people designing what’s next.
Here’s what we track:
I. The Market → bets, busts, and funding rounds
II. The Culture → brand, values, and emotional shifts
III. The Interfaces → UX, features, and product updates
IV. The Feed → social, soundbites, and shitposts
Let’s dive in.
I. The Market
▫️ OpenAI x Jony Ive – A $6.5B Bet on a Screenless Future
This week’s headline is, once again, all about OpenAI. The company just acquired io, the secretive hardware startup co-founded in 2024 by Jony Ive – Apple’s legendary Chief Design Officer behind nearly every iconic product of the Jobs era. The deal values io at $6.5 billion.
Laurene Powell Jobs, founder of Emerson Collective and widow of Steve Jobs, has been a prominent backer of Ive’s ventures, including io. Both she and Ive have voiced concerns about the unintended side effects of modern tech – like screen addiction and social media dependence – calling for more humane, responsible design principles. Ive told the FT “Humanity deserves better.”
Though io hasn’t launched anything yet, leaks suggest they’re developing a screenless wearable powered by cameras, mics, and ambient sensors. The goal is to create a context-aware, AI-native assistant – likely now powered by a GPT model. Sam Altman reportedly called it “the next iPhone.”
Our take: This isn’t just a hardware play. It’s a bet on changing behaviour. We’re entering a phase where “interface” means context, not screens – powered by ambient sensors, AI inference, and edge compute.
If OpenAI and io get it right, they could pioneer a new standard for how we interact with intelligent systems in everyday life. But the hardware graveyard is already crowded. Google Glass, the Humane Pin, VR as a whole – all failed to catalyse meaningful behaviour changes beyond niche use cases. If the value isn’t obvious or the assistant feels intrusive, it risks mainstream rejection – or worse… irrelevance. A failure here could set the entire category back for years.
▫️ Google I/O – Generative UI with Stitch
Unveiled at I/O 2025, Stitch turns natural language prompts into front-end components. It's Google’s answer to AI-first UI generation – but feedback is mixed. Right now, Stitch is clunky but directionally correct: it returns repetitive outputs, ignores nuanced prompts, and struggles with real-world complexity. It’s probably okay for quick wireframes – but the fear of full design-team replacement is still a distant one.
Our take: This is definitely a v0.1… As models improve, these tools will collapse the design → dev pipeline. The long-term win is still intent-driven UI and novel experiences that delight users in new ways, not generic mockups, but it’s a step in that direction. For now it's more of a toy than a tool.
Also notable from I/O: Veo 3, a cinematic text-to-video model - this is a great model improvement (excelling at realistic physics, long-form scenes, and even lip-syncing dialogue). Check out this faux-pharma ad someone made with it.
▫️ Signal x Microsoft – Fighting For Privacy
Microsoft's new Recall feature – which screenshots your screen every few seconds to create a searchable visual timeline – has sparked a wave of privacy concerns. In response, Signal, the privacy-first messaging app, updated its Windows app to block Recall from capturing its content. The protection is now enabled by default and is visually a *chef’s kiss.*
Our take: AI is turning privacy into a design constraint. Tools that operate alongside AI-native systems need to now consider how user data is remembered, inferred, and resurfaced – even by external agents. Signal’s move underscores a new reality: apps must now defend their surfaces, not just their servers.
II. The Culture
▫️ Lewis Hamilton x Perplexity – Speed In Search
Perplexity, the $9B AI-powered search engine challenger, has signed Lewis Hamilton in a global deal. Perplexity’s logo will now ride shotgun on Hamilton’s helmet for the rest of the F1 season. Their VP calls it a bet on “excellence, speed, and curiosity.”
Our take: As AI tools race toward feature parity (and commoditisation), differentiation shifts from function to feeling. This is an attempt to anchor Perplexity in cultural cachet while Google falls deeper into ads and clutter. It's a signal that perception – not just precision – will shape the next wave of AI tools.
▫️ Rick Rubin x Anthropic – The Way of Code
Legendary music producer Rick Rubin – the creative force behind Johnny Cash and Jay-Z – has teamed up with Anthropic to publish The Way of Code – an AI-generated reinterpretation of the Tao Te Ching. 81 poetic prompts meet generative visuals, designed to guide technologists toward more intentional, humane code.
Our take: This isn’t just creative marketing – it’s new cultural framing. Anthropic is doubling down on its position as the “values-forward” and “moral” AI company. With this drop (and previous billboards like “A chatbot. A friend.”), it’s building an emotional moat: not just safer AI, but more soulful AI.
III. The Interface
▫️ Amazon – AI Audio Highlights
Amazon is testing short-form AI-generated audio summaries on some product pages in their app. These clips distill specs, reviews, and third-party insights into friendly, conversational overviews – built for multitasking and on-the-go shopping.
Quick take: As screens shrink (both literally and metaphorically) products are being designed for more passive engagement. These audio snippets might be genuinely useful, but they also blur the line between help and influence, especially when delivered in voices that sound less like spec-readers and more like trusted friends.
▫️ ChatGPT – Quiet UI Refresh
OpenAI quietly rolled out a refreshed ChatGPT UI. Tools like “Image,” “Search,” and “Deep Research” are now tucked into a unified Tools menu, with a cleaner layout across devices.
Quick take: This shift reflects a growing design pattern in AI tools: collapsing features into unified entry points. As systems grow in scope, simplicity wins – not by hiding complexity, but by structuring it accessibly and intuitively.
▫️ Samsung – One UI 8 Launches
Samsung’s latest Android skin brings subtle changes – like a cleaner file view, redesigned reminder app, and a new 90:10 split screen mode for better multitasking.
▫️ Spotify – New Mobile Nav
Spotify swapped the ‘Your Library’ button with a new ‘Create’ button on mobile – right where millions of thumbs instinctively tap and people are furious. It’s being hailed as true a betrayal of muscle memory.
IV. The Feed
▫️ Tom Scott – Product Design FAQ
Tom Scott (Verified Insider) dropped a new Product Design FAQ covering the state of product design: burnout, AI tooling, and whether staying an IC is still viable.
Quick take: We’re entering the “IC Renaissance.” AI flattens hierarchies and accelerates production, but taste, systems thinking, and bias to action still win.
What did you think?
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