OpenAI has reportedly acquired Glass Imaging, a California-based startup developing AI-powered smartphone camera technology, in a deal valued at more than $300 million.

Glass Imaging was founded in 2019 and is based in Los Altos, California. Before the reported transaction, the company had raised roughly $30 million in funding.

The deal brings OpenAI closer to a team with deep experience in smartphone photography. Glass Imaging was founded by Ziv Attar and Tom Bishop, two former Apple engineers who previously worked on the development of the iPhone’s Portrait Mode feature.

What Glass Imaging brings to OpenAI

Glass Imaging has focused on improving smartphone photography through artificial intelligence rather than relying solely on larger or more complex camera hardware.

Its technology uses neural networks trained for individual camera systems, with the aim of improving image quality at the point an image is captured. The approach is designed to work directly during capture instead of depending on edits applied afterwards.

That focus gives the reported acquisition a clear technology angle. Glass Imaging has been working at the intersection of AI, computational photography and smartphone camera systems, an area where software increasingly plays a central role in determining the final image produced by a device.

For OpenAI, the transaction would add a team that has spent years working specifically on the limitations of compact smartphone cameras and using machine learning to improve their output.

Glass Imaging founders have Apple camera experience

Attar and Bishop’s background is particularly notable because of their previous work at Apple.

Before establishing Glass Imaging, the two engineers were involved in the development of Portrait Mode for the iPhone. Their later venture took that experience into a new company built around the use of AI to address the physical limitations of smartphone camera hardware.

Rather than treating artificial intelligence as an editing layer added after a photograph has been taken, Glass Imaging has concentrated on applying its neural-network technology during image capture itself.

Deal follows OpenAI’s earlier move into device technology

Glass Imaging acquisition comes after another major hardware-related transaction by OpenAI.

OpenAI purchased the device startup io, which is linked to OpenAI’s founder and CEO, Sam Altman, and the Apple designer Jony Ive, in 2025 for $6.5 billion. This acquisition by OpenAI was referred to as part of its entry into consumer devices.

The Glass Imaging transaction is far smaller in reported value, but it brings a highly specialised camera technology team into OpenAI’s orbit.

AI Insider said OpenAI did not immediately respond to its request for comment on the acquisition.

For now, the most significant part of the reported deal is the technology OpenAI would be gaining: a company built specifically around using neural networks to improve what smartphone cameras can produce at the moment a picture is taken.

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