OpenAI poaches Meta's Orion hardware boss for robotics push

The engineer behind Meta's Orion AR glasses is heading to OpenAI.

Caitlin Kalinowski, who led Meta's augmented reality hardware team, announced on Monday that she is joining OpenAI to lead robotics and consumer hardware. OpenAI confirmed the hire to TechCrunch.

Kalinowski has an elite hardware pedigree. She oversaw the creation of Orion, the AR glasses prototype that Meta recently debuted at its Connect event. Before taking over Orion in March 2022, she led Meta's VR headset hardware team for roughly nine years. Prior to Meta, she designed MacBooks at Apple.

From MacBooks to robotics

In her LinkedIn announcement, Kalinowski said her initial focus at OpenAI will be on robotics efforts and partnerships to bring AI into the physical world.

That role could also reunite her with former Apple design chief Jony Ive. Back in September, Ive confirmed he is working with OpenAI and his design firm LoveFrom on an AI hardware product, which he described as creating a computing experience less socially disruptive than the iPhone.

OpenAI has also recently started recruiting research engineers for a robotics team aimed at helping external partners integrate multimodal AI into real-world machines.

This marks a full reboot for OpenAI's embodied AI ambitions. The company dissolved its internal robotics group about four years ago to focus entirely on software, years after building an autonomous robot hand that learned to grip objects in 2018.

Hardware makers are already leaning on OpenAI. Humanoid startup Figure powers its Figure 01 robot's speech with OpenAI models, while Apple is set to launch its ChatGPT integration for iPhone later this year.

Why it matters

AI needs a body, and OpenAI knows it. While language models have advanced at a breakneck pace on screens, the next frontier requires collecting data and taking actions in the physical world.

For everyday consumers, this does not mean an OpenAI gadget will hit store shelves tomorrow. But Kalinowski's arrival proves that the secretive hardware project between Sam Altman and Jony Ive is moving past early design sketches and into serious engineering.

We think poaching one of Silicon Valley's most proven hardware leaders is a smart way to avoid the traps that sank early AI gadgets like the Humane Ai Pin or Rabbit R1. Building hardware is notoriously brutal, and having someone who led MacBook lines and Quest headsets gives OpenAI real engineering muscle.

It also sets up a fascinating competitive dynamic. OpenAI is currently relying on partners like Apple to reach consumer pockets. Building out dedicated hardware and robotics leadership makes it clear that OpenAI has no intention of remaining just a backend software provider forever.