OpenAI Acquires Former Apple Shortcuts Team to Expand Desktop Offering

OpenAI has acquired Software Applications Inc., an AI startup founded by former Apple engineers who helped build the iPhone’s Shortcuts app, according to Bloomberg. The deal strengthens OpenAI’s effort to make ChatGPT more interactive by integrating it directly with users’ computers, enabling the model to perform tasks beyond text-based prompts.

The startup’s flagship tool, Sky for Mac, is a desktop assistant that lets users control software through natural language and visual context. The system can identify what appears on screen and execute actions like opening files, drafting messages or navigating apps. OpenAI said the company’s dozen employees will join its ChatGPT division, focusing on developing interface technologies for agentic computing.

Software Applications previously raised $6.5 million from investors, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Figma CEO Dylan Field. OpenAI said the acquisition was approved by its independent board and managed by the product team overseeing ChatGPT’s interface roadmap. Financial details were not disclosed.

Founded in 2023, Software Applications aimed to make personal computing more intuitive through contextual AI. Its Sky assistant blends speech recognition and computer vision to understand what users are doing on their devices and assist accordingly. OpenAI’s ChatGPT team lead Nick Turley said Sky’s technology “brings ChatGPT closer to acting as an on-screen collaborator.”

The acquisition follows the launch of ChatGPT Atlas, OpenAI’s new browser that embeds the model directly into online workflows. Atlas allows users to browse, summarize and act on web content in real time, signaling the company’s move toward full-service AI workspaces. Together, Atlas and Sky suggest OpenAI’s vision of unifying browser, desktop and cloud-based environments under a single agentic system.

The deal also reflects OpenAI’s expanding infrastructure footprint. As PYMNTS reported, the company’s compute partnerships with Microsoft, Google Cloud and Oracle now exceed $1 trillion in total contract value, underscoring the resources needed to power autonomous agents at scale.

The acquisition shows OpenAI’s intent to transform ChatGPT into an operating layer for everyday computing. By merging interface design and model capability, OpenAI is moving toward AI that can manage files, applications and workflows directly from users’ devices. For OpenAI, integrating Sky’s desktop technology advances its goal of building AI that doesn’t just respond to queries but acts as a true collaborator, linking language, context and execution across the desktop, web and cloud.

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