OpenAI has acquired Glass Imaging, a startup based in Los Altos, California, for more than $300 million. The Wall Street Journal reported the deal, adding that Glass Imaging had raised about $30 million from investors before the sale.
Ziv Attar and Tom Bishop founded Glass Imaging in 2019. Both are former Apple engineers who led the team behind the company’s Portrait Mode camera feature. They brought that experience to their own startup.
Glass Imaging uses artificial intelligence to get around the limits that a phone camera’s small size imposes. Its neural networks don’t fix a photo after it’s taken. Instead, they learn the quirks of individual camera systems, such as the different modules on various smartphone models, so the image comes out better the moment the shutter clicks. That’s a different approach from after-the-fact AI editing, the kind OpenAI sharpened in ChatGPT Images 2.5 earlier this month.
OpenAI hasn’t commented on the purchase. The ChatGPT maker is rumored to be working on its own hardware, including smartphones, earbuds and AI companion devices. The phone is the device with the most details so far. In April, reports said OpenAI is developing a smartphone where AI agents replace traditional apps.
Follow Mediasat on Google News: the latest in TV, telecom and tech
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo later said OpenAI is speeding up work on its AI phone. He expects the device to launch in 2027.
Glass Imaging isn’t OpenAI’s first high-profile acquisition. In 2025, the company paid $6.5 billion for io, the startup of famed Apple designer Jony Ive, who had been working on devices with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. And in April 2026, OpenAI bought its first media property, the tech talk show TBPN.
