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Caitlin Kalinowski, former lead of Meta’s augmented reality hardware team, will head a new consumer hardware team at artificial intelligence firm OpenAI. Kalinowski, who has experience at Apple and in creating Meta’s Orion augmented reality glasses, will focus on consumer robotics. Despite previous consumer-oriented AI attempts like Humane’s AI “pin” or smart speakers from Google and Amazon, no advanced AI system has really hit the mass market yet. OpenAI, with Kalinowski’s expertise, could speed this up by licensing specific technologies to major tech companies.

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Caitlin Kalinowski, who used to lead Meta’s augmented reality hardware crew, is switching gears to head up a new consumer-focused hardware team at OpenAI, an artificial intelligence company. If you’re a tech geek, you might remember her as the whiz behind the recently launched Orion augmented reality glasses from Meta. That’s not all – she’s also done some time as a designer and engineer at Apple and has been hustling in the virtual reality and metaverse arenas for the past decade.

Remember those awesome Orion augmented reality glasses from Meta? They were Kalinowski’s baby, part of Meta’s big dreams for the metaverse. But don’t expect her to keep on the same path at OpenAI. Looks like she’s going to be working on consumer robotics instead.

Posting on X.com, Kalinowski seemed pretty excited about the move, saying she was “delighted” to be moving to OpenAI to lead up the “robotics and consumer hardware”. No official word yet on what her fancy new title will be, but it’s rumored she’ll be one of the first to venture into the company’s hardware zone.

Talking about her new responsibilities, she mentioned focusing on OpenAI’s robotics work and partnerships to get AI more involved in the physical world and make it more accessible to everyone.

You’ve probably noticed there’s been a boom in the AI world since OpenAI launched ChatGPT back in 2023. You’ve got firms like Nvidia and TSMC making strides in AI hardware, but we’re still waiting for that game-changing product for regular customers, you know, like what the iPhone did for mobile.

Previous attempts to make AI a tangible (?!) thing include Humane’s AI “pin” and various smart speakers from Google and Amazon, all to some degree of success or interest from us, the consumers. But nothing with advanced AI systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT has really hit the mass market yet.

The company’s new consumer hardware division might be the answer to making this a reality faster. Hint: they could skip the headaches of developing hardware and instead license specific technologies to the big players in tech. This would take advantage of the company’s existing AI models and new hardware lead’s (read: Kalinowski) vast experience and connections in the industry, having worked with big-name manufacturers like Meta and Apple.