Meta’s former augmented reality hardware team lead, Caitlin Kalinowski, will head up a new consumer hardware team for artificial intelligence firm OpenAI. 

Kalinowski was the lead engineer on Meta’s recently launched “Orion” augmented reality glasses and has previously worked as a designer and engineer for Apple. According to a report from TechCrunch, she’s spent the past decade working in the virtual reality and metaverse spaces. 

While her most recently launched project, Meta’s Orion augmented reality glasses, were developed as part of her former company’s ambitions in the metaverse space, it appears the OpenAI gig will be more oriented toward consumer robotics.

Kalinowski, in a post on X, said she was “delighted” to share that she was joining OpenAI to “lead robotics and consumer hardware.” It’s unclear what her official title will be, but the division will be among the company’s first endeavors in the hardware space. 

AI hardware

Artificial intelligence technology has experienced a boom in the wake of OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT in 2023. Despite the meteoric rise of firms in the technology sector dedicated to the development of AI hardware, such as Nvidia and TSMC, the market for AI-powered hardware and devices aimed at consumers has yet to experience its so-called “iPhone moment.”

Related: OpenAI in talks with regulators to become a for-profit company: Report

Previous attempts at bringing AI into the physical world, such as Humane’s AI “pin” and various smart speaker devices from companies such as Google and Amazon, have captured consumer interest to varying degrees. But, so far, hardware featuring advanced AI systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT has failed to reach mass market appeal. 

The company’s new consumer hardware division may endeavor to speed up the process by licensing specific technologies to Big Tech — rather than developing its own hardware and manufacturing in-house. This would leverage both the firm’s AI models and its new hardware lead’s experience working with large-scale hardware manufacturers including Meta and Apple.

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