OpenAI quietly acquired Glass Imaging in recent months in a deal valuing the smartphone-camera AI startup above $300 million, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. TechCrunch carried a matching account; OpenAI declined to comment to TechCrunch.
OpenAI has bought Glass Imaging, a startup that uses AI to improve smartphone camera quality, in a deal valuing the company at more than $300 million, The Wall Street Journal reported on September 14, citing people familiar with the matter. TechCrunch published a matching account the same day. OpenAI did not comment to TechCrunch.
Glass Imaging was founded in 2019 in Los Altos by former Apple engineers Ziv Attar and Tom Bishop, who previously worked on technology connected to Portrait Mode. The company builds AI neural image processing that aims to improve smartphone camera quality at the shutter, including noise, blur, zoom, and lens imperfections, rather than only fixing photos after capture. TechCrunch said Glass had raised about $30 million before the acquisition.
The purchase sits in a broader hardware and device-stack conversation around OpenAI, including prior reporting on a device effort tied to designer Jony Ive. Those threads remain attributed rumor context in coverage of the Glass deal; they are not confirmed as a product plan in the WSJ or TechCrunch accounts cited here.
This brief follows the Journal’s valuation reporting and TechCrunch’s corroboration. It does not treat the acquisition as proof of a specific OpenAI device shipping date.