OpenAI is reportedly fast tracking its push into the smartphone category. According to a report, the ChatGPT maker is accelerating the mass production of its first "AI agent" smartphone in order to support the year-end IPO it is planning, along with beating the competition in AI agent phones. The mass production of OpenAI's first phone could occur during the first half of 2027, pulling it forward from an initially projected 2028 release window. OpenAI is aiming to compete at a fairly large scale right from the start.
According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, OpenAI is accelerating development, potentially to align with a larger business moment such as an IPO. Earlier updates had suggested a longer roadmap, with chip development involving MediaTek and Qualcomm, and manufacturing support from Luxshare.
The current expectation is that MediaTek could end up as the primary chip supplier. Even then, this is not expected to be a high-volume launch immediately. Kuo estimates around 30 million units across 2027 and 2028 combined, which is relatively small compared to the wider smartphone market. For context, Apple and Samsung ship around 60 million units in a quarter. The early phase looks more like a controlled rollout than a mass-market push.
The OpenAI phone is expected to run on a customized version of MediaTek’s Dimensity 9600 chip, built on TSMC’s upcoming N2P process. In other words, this refers to a newer way of manufacturing chips that improves efficiency and performance, which matters when the phone is expected to run AI tasks continuously.
