OpenAI reportedly acquires Glass Imaging in deal valuing camera startup above $300 million

OpenAI has reportedly acquired Glass Imaging, a camera-technology startup founded by former Apple engineers, in a deal valuing the company at more than $300 million. The Wall Street Journal reported the acquisition, citing people familiar with the matter.

The deal comes as OpenAI expands its hardware organization around former Apple design chief Jony Ive and the team behind io Products. Neither OpenAI nor Glass Imaging has publicly announced the transaction.

Glass Imaging was founded in 2019 by Ziv Attar and Tom Bishop. According to the startup, both previously worked on computational photography at Apple, including technology associated with the iPhone’s Portrait mode.

The company develops GlassAI, camera-processing software that uses neural networks to improve images captured by small sensors. Glass Imaging says the technology can recover more detail, reduce noise and compensate for some of the physical limitations of compact camera hardware.

GlassAI is already used in a commercial product. The software powers zoom processing in the Honor 600 smartphone series, working with images captured by the phones’ 200-megapixel main cameras. PetaPixel reported that the Honor partnership was Glass Imaging’s first publicly identified smartphone deployment.

The reported acquisition follows OpenAI’s expansion into consumer hardware. The io Products team officially merged with OpenAI in July 2025, bringing hardware and software engineers, product-development specialists and manufacturing experts into the company.

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