OpenAI has acquired Glass Imaging, a smartphone camera startup, in a deal valued at more than $300 million, according to a Wall Street Journal report cited by TechCrunch. OpenAI had not responded to a request for comment.
Glass Imaging was founded in 2019 by Ziv Attar and Tom Bishop, two former Apple engineers who led development of Portrait Mode, and had raised roughly $30 million before the deal. The Los Altos company trains neural networks on individual camera hardware to improve image quality at capture, rather than through post-processing edits.
The deal lands amid persistent rumors that OpenAI is building its own hardware, including phones, earbuds, and AI companion devices. It already owns io, the device startup it bought for $6.5 billion in 2025 after Sam Altman and former Apple designer Jony Ive disclosed their partnership.
Neither company has said what the acquired team will build, and TechCrunch’s reporting, sourced to the Journal, includes no deal terms beyond the headline figure.
A computational-photography team with Apple pedigree is a stronger signal of OpenAI’s device intent than the earbuds and companion-device rumors alone.
Reported by TechCrunch on September 14, 2026, citing a Wall Street Journal report on the deal and its valuation.
