After the global wave of ChatGPT, OpenAI is quietly shifting its strategic focus. The company has decided to reorganize its internal teams, merging engineering, product, and research departments into a single unit, fully betting on the development of voice AI and hardware devices. This new device, codenamed "Gumdrop," is expected to resemble a pen or portable speaker. It is currently in the design phase and could be unveiled to users as early as 2026. Interestingly, the choice of manufacturing partner is also quietly changing—from the original Luxshare in China to Foxconn.

Why does OpenAI place such importance on voice? The logic is simple—voice is closer to human daily interaction habits than text. According to reports, OpenAI internally considers this the next breakthrough opportunity. They plan to release a new generation of speech language models in the first quarter of 2026, while also optimizing speech recognition accuracy and response speed. This timeline also reflects OpenAI’s sense of urgency.

Voice interfaces have always been a fiercely contested territory among tech giants. From Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, to various iterations of Google Assistant, competition in this field has never ceased. The problem is that these early products all eventually hit growth stagnation. It wasn’t until the advent of large language models that new possibilities for voice interaction emerged. Now, with OpenAI’s aggressive push, the focus on this battlefield is re-converging—who can make voice truly the killer app that changes hardware usage habits will hold the key to the next era.