OpenAI has just announced that it has acquired Software Applications Incorporated, the company that developed Sky - an AI-powered natural language interface for macOS.
Sky is designed as a virtual assistant on the computer screen: it can observe what is displayed, grasp the work youre doing, and perform actions on thay theons such as spelling, planning, to programming.
According to observers, this deal marks OpenAI's strategic expansion, from the Chatbot platform ChatGPT to directly integrating AI into the operating system. This is a direction that could reshape the way humans interact with computers in the future.
The person behind Sky is Ari Weinstein and Conrad Kramer, two former Apple engineers who co-founded the Workflow app and the product was later acquired by Apple and developed into the Shortcuts feature (the ability to activate voice actions via Siri).
After many years at Apple, the duo, along with Kim Beverett, a former senior product manager in charge of technologies like Safari, Web Kit, Messages, Mail and FaceTime, left to establish Software Applications in August 2023.
Ari Weinstein ( CEO Software Applications) shared: We always want a computer to be more powerful, customizable and more intuitive. With large language models (LLM), we can finally combine the pieces together. Thats why we built Sky an AI experience that helps you think and be creative.
According to Nick Turley (Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI), Sky is an important part of the vision of integrating artificial intelligence into the tools that humans use every day.
Skys deep integration with macOS helps us get closer to the goal of bringing AI directly to familiar every day tools, Nick Turley shared.
The acquisition was implemented by Nick Turley and Fidji Simo (Operating Director of Application) and was approved by the OpenAI board.
Financial terms have not been announced. However, according to Pitchbook (a global financial data platform), Software Applications has raised 6.5 million USD from investors including Sam altman ( CEO OpenAI), Dylan Field ( CEO figurema) and 2 venture capital funds Context Ventures, Stellation Capital.
Meanwhile, Apple is still pursuing its own development direction with the Apple Intelligence platform, expected to launch an AI- embedded Siri version next year.
This system focuses on privacy and local processing, significantly different from the active AI model (Agentic AI) that Sky is pursuing. This is where AI has the power to observe the screen and perform actions on behalf of the user.
Experts say this is a technology with many risks, especially in the context of AI browsers revealing many problems with data security. Apple may take a significant amount of time to deploy the Sky-like product for macOS.
