OpenAI CFO says AI hardware will boost ChatGPT subscriptions in ‘new era of computing’
OpenAI is betting a new “era” of computing will justify the company’s decision to spend billions of dollars on bespoke hardware to go with it, Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar said.
The artificial intelligence startup, best known for the ChatGPT chatbot, announced plans on Wednesday to buy iPhone designer Jony Ive’s devices startup io for about $6.4 billion. Ive’s company was founded roughly a year ago and doesn’t have a product on the market.
Friar told CNBC on Thursday that any startup as young as io was “hard to value.” But she sees an eventual return on that investment.
“You’re really betting on great people and beyond,” Friar said. “It’s not just about imagining what a new platform could look like — you’ve got to be able to craft it. You’ve got to be able to build it. You’ve got to be able to understand supply chains.”
Friar, who took the CFO job at OpenAI last summer and was formerly CEO of Nextdoor, said new devices will eventually get OpenAI’s technology in the hands of more users, and drive subscription growth and attach rates. ChatGPT last reported 500 million weekly active users, but monthly actives are higher, Friar said.
“When you start thinking about it beyond just a phone, it starts to grab the imagination,” she said. “If we can get people around the world excited to use AI, we have many ways to begin to think of a business model around that. So it could be an ongoing, bigger subscription for ChatGPT.”
Friar’s comments echo others in the tech industry who have said AI hardware could change the face of computing, and threaten the iPhone. Eddy Cue, Apple’s chief of services, said earlier this month that he believes AI devices could replace the iPhone within ten years.
While OpenAI works with Apple on an iPhone and Siri integration, Friar said the company still saw a need to have its own proprietary devices.
“We want to work with many partners. When we single-thread ourselves, we don’t think that drives max innovation,” Friar said. “We continue to work closely with Apple on their device, and we’d love to see more being done with AI — but we also want to keep sparking innovation broadly in the ecosystem.”
Friar hinted at new devices without touchscreens. She declined to give details around what exactly they might look like, pointing to the former Apple team’s secretive culture and “mystique” around products.
“As you birth this new era of AI, there’s going to be new platforms and new substrate,” she said. “We think of tech today as a little bit more around touch. We as humans, we see things, we hear things, we talk. And our models are great at that.”
Two Amazon Prime Air MK30 drones collided with a crane on Oct. 2, 2025 in Tolleson, Arizona.
Courtesy: 12News
Amazon is facing federal probes after two of its Prime Air delivery drones collided with a crane in Arizona, prompting the company to temporarily pause drone service in the area.
The incident occurred on Wednesday around 1 p.m. EST in Tolleson, Arizona, a city west of Phoenix. Two MK30 drones crashed into the boom of a stationary construction crane that was in a commercial area just a few miles away from an Amazon warehouse.
One person was evaluated on the scene for possible smoke inhalation, said Sergeant Erik Mendez of the Tolleson Police Department.
“We’re aware of an incident involving two Prime Air drones in Tolleson, Arizona,” Amazon spokesperson Terrence Clark said in a statement. “We’re currently working with the relevant authorities to investigate.”
Both drones sustained “substantial” damage from the collision on Wednesday, which occurred when the aircraft were mid-route, according to preliminary FAA crash reports.
The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident. The NTSB didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The drones were believed to be flying northeast back-to-back when they collided with the crane that was being used for roof work on a distribution facility, Tolleson police said in a release. The drones landed in the backyard of a nearby building, according to the release.
The probes come just a few months after Amazon, in January, paused drone deliveries in Tolleson and College Station, Texas, temporarily following two crashes at its Pendleton, Oregon, test site. Those crashes also prompted investigations by the FAA and NTSB. The company resumed deliveries in March after it said it had resolved issues with the drone’s software, CNBC previously reported.
Amazon says its delivery drones are equipped with a sense-and-avoid system that enables them to “detect and stay away from obstacles in the air and on the ground.” The system also allows the aircraft to operate without visual observers over greater distances, the company said.
For over a decade, Amazon has been working to bring to life founder Jeff Bezos’ vision of drones whizzing toothpaste, books and batteries to customers’ doorsteps in 30 minutes or less. But progress has been slow, as Prime Air has only been made available in a handful of U.S. cities.
Amazon has set a goal to deliver 500 million packages by drone per year by the end of the decade.
Aravind Srinivas, chief executive officer Perplexity AI, during a news conference at the SK Telecom Co. headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, on Wednesday, Sept.4, 2024.
SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Perplexity AI on Thursday announced that its artificial-intelligence-powered web browser Comet is available worldwide, and will be free to users.
The Comet browser is designed to serve as a personal assistant that can search the web, organize tabs, draft emails, shop and more, according to Perplexity. The startup initially launched Comet in July to Perplexity Max subscribers for $200 a month, and the waitlist has ballooned to “millions” of people, the company said.
Tune in at 8:10 a.m. ET Friday as Perplexity co-founder and CEO Aravind Srinivas joins CNBC TV to discuss the release of its AI browser Comet to users for free. Watch in real time on CNBC+ or the CNBC Pro stream.
Perplexity’s decision to provide Comet for free could help it attract more users as it works to fend off rivals like Google, OpenAI and Anthropic that have their own AI browser offerings.
In September, Google rolled out Gemini in its Chrome browser, Anthropic announced a browser-based AI agent in August and OpenAI announced Operator, an agent that uses a browser to complete tasks, in January. Perplexity made an unsolicited $34.5 billion bid for Google’s Chrome browser in August.
Perplexity is best known for its AI-powered search engine that gives users simple answers to questions and links out to the original source material on the web. After the company was accused of plagiarizing content from media outlets, it launched a revenue-sharing model with publishers last year.
The company also introduced Comet Plus in August, which is a subscription that gives users access to content from “trusted publishers and journalists,” according to a blog post. Perplexity said Tuesday that CNN, Condé Nast, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Le Monde, and Le Figaro are its inaugural publishing partners.
Perplexity said additional features are also on the way. The company teased a mobile version of Comet and a feature called Background Assistant, which can work on multiple tasks simultaneously and asynchronously.
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