Apple is about to lose one of the people most closely tied to the Vision Pro. Paul Meade, the executive who ran the Vision Products Group and oversaw the headset and Apple’s smart glasses efforts, is reportedly leaving next week for OpenAI to lead its hardware division.
The move matters because OpenAI is no longer just a chatbot company with hardware dreams. It has been building AI devices with Jony Ive’s startup since 2025, and now it is pulling in an Apple veteran with deep experience in premium consumer hardware. That is a pretty direct signal that OpenAI wants to ship real products, not just mood-board concepts.
Paul Meade’s Apple hardware run
Meade spent seven years leading hardware engineering for Vision Pro, and he had also been driving Apple’s smart glasses projects. Before that, he worked on the iPad and iPhone, which gives him the kind of device-making pedigree OpenAI cannot fake with a slick demo and a whiteboard.
- Current role: head of Apple’s Vision Products Group
- Next role: lead OpenAI’s hardware unit
- Earlier Apple work: iPad, iPhone, Vision Pro hardware, smart glasses
OpenAI is building an AI device family, not a single gadget
According to Bloomberg, Meade will oversee a family of AI-powered devices. That wording is doing a lot of work: it suggests OpenAI is thinking beyond one halo product and toward a lineup, which is how consumer hardware usually becomes a business instead of a PR stunt.
The timing also puts Apple and OpenAI on a more obvious collision course. OpenAI’s work with Ive’s io remains independent even after the $6.5 billion deal, while The Information reported earlier this year that Ive’s studio is also working on AI devices, including a smart speaker expected sometime in 2027. Apple, meanwhile, has reportedly pushed its first smart glasses model to the end of 2027.
Apple’s hardware reshuffle is already under way
At Apple, Fletcher Rothkopf, one of the founders of the Vision Pro team, will take over many of Meade’s responsibilities. Bloomberg says Meade’s departure is tied to John Ternus’ impending rise to CEO of Apple. Ternus, now senior vice president of hardware engineering, is set to take over from Tim Cook on September 1.
That makes this look less like a random defection and more like a classic corporate shuffle during a leadership transition. The bigger question is whether OpenAI can turn Apple-grade hardware talent into products people actually want to wear, hold, and charge every night. Plenty of companies can hire engineers; far fewer can make a device worth carrying around.