Former Meta AR Glasses Project Leader Joins OpenAI to Head Robotics and Consumer Hardware

A LinkedIn announcement revealed that Kathleen Carlinovskaya, previously leading Meta's augmented reality (AR) glasses initiative, declared on Monday her transition to OpenAI, where she will spearhead the Robotics and Consumer Hardware sector.

Kathleen Carlinovskaya, a seasoned hardware executive, has been at the helm of Meta's AR eyewear team since March 2022. Her leadership played a crucial role in the successful development and demonstration of Meta's Orion augmented reality prototype at the annual Connect conference. Furthermore, Carlinovskaya managed Meta's virtual reality glasses hardware team for approximately nine years. Prior to joining Meta, she was with Apple, overseeing the hardware design of the MacBook.

At OpenAI, Carlinovskaya will initially concentrate on the organization’s robotics projects and associated collaborations, with the goal of embedding AI technologies into the tangible world and unlocking their advantages for human society.

There are indications that Carlinovskaya may partner with her former boss and ex-Apple executive Jony Ive in developing a new AI hardware device, jointly crafted by OpenAI and Ive's startup, LoveFrom. In September, Ive confirmed his collaboration with OpenAI on a hardware product that uses artificial intelligence to offer a computing experience with greater social integration than the iPhone.

OpenAI has recently initiated recruitment for research engineers within its robotics team, intending to aid partners in embedding its multimodal AI technologies into their hardware offerings. This move marks the revival of OpenAI's robotics division, several years after the company disbanded its hardware research team to concentrate on software development around four years ago. Notably, in 2018, OpenAI developed a robotic hand that could autonomously learn to grasp objects.

At present, multiple companies have incorporated OpenAI’s models into their hardware devices. A prominent example is Apple, which is set to introduce ChatGPT integration in the iPhone later this year. Additionally, the robotics firm Figure has developed a humanoid robot named 01 that employs OpenAI software for natural language conversations.