With cash from OpenAI, Opal is making an AI-powered audio tool

Small san Francisco’s startup is known for its well-appointed and beautifully designed manufactures Webcams Now competing to become Amnesty International Appliance company at the moment.

Opal camera It has been rebranded as Opal Electronics and will expand its product portfolio beyond webcams to include a wider range of consumer devices, some of which will focus on artificial intelligence. It aims to emulate Sony Electronics as a broad consumer gadgets brand by focusing on design and culture, not just technology.

This transformation was made possible by a $40 million Series B funding round from OpenAI. Some details about investing It was first reported in 2024but the deal closed in the first quarter of 2025. Other investors in Opal include Samsung, Peter Thiel, Seven Seven Six (Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital firm), and popular 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.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, was an early customer and fan of Opal’s original C1 webcam, so much so that his team visited Opal’s offices in 2022 to ask if Whisper was from OpenAI Phonetic transcription model It can be played locally on Opal cameras for live translations on Zoom. The source, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, says that at the end of this meeting OpenAI offered the Opal team a preview From ChatGPT. The event made such an impact on attendees that the company decided to turn it into a research laboratory.

Since then, Opal has been working on an AI-powered audio product for the past few years. This, in turn, is the product that convinced Altman to invest in Opal. It will launch within the next three to four months and is currently being tested by Altman, researchers at OpenAI, and executives at xAI, Thinking machinesand Anthropic. It’s unclear if this device is a wearable, though the source says it’s a familiar product category, and it’s not designed to compete with the iPhone.

OpenAI famously collaborated with a former iPhone designer Jony Ive and his company LoveFrom to explore personal devices that would run ChatGPT and other OpenAI software. It is not yet clear what Micro hardware strategy is for OpenAI, but its first product is rumored to be something similar to Smart speakerThe launch date is expected to be in early 2027.

Opal’s audio product will be launched in partnership with a specific AI lab — the source couldn’t identify which lab — but Opal is in talks with OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, allowing users to switch models depending on their preferences. Opal Electronics plans to release two more products in the next 12 months.

Courtesy of Opal Electronics