The idea is a “chance to do the biggest thing we’ve ever done as a company here,” Altman told OpenAI employees Wednesday.

From the beige boxes of the late ’90s to the scintillating aluminium and glass of today, I’ve seen our devices evolve from mere tools to extensions of ourselves. We’ve gone from lugging around chunky desktop towers to slipping elegant slabs of silicon into our back pockets.

With former Apple design guru Jony Ive's backing and support, things are about to get very interesting at OpenAI. What they come up with might not be an iPhone 2.0 but if done right, it could be the modern-day iPhone moment that fans and pundits have been waiting for.