Apple’s top executive in charge of Vision Pro and smart glasses is reportedly leaving the company to join OpenAI.
According to a Bloomberg report, longtime Apple hardware exec Paul Meade is leaving Apple for OpenAI’s hardware team, which according to people with knowledge of his departure will include work on OpenAI’s upcoming AI-powered devices.
In Meade’s 15-year tenure, he oversaw iPad, program management for the iPhone, and then eventually Vision Pro via its Vision Products Group, which he joined in 2017 and later took over as hardware engineering lead in 2019.
While the product group is principally responsible for the launch of Vision Pro, Bloomberg maintains Meade was also behind the development of Apple’s rumored audio-only smart glasses, which would be similar in function to Ray-Ban Meta and Google’s upcoming fleet of Android XR-running smart glasses, slated to release this year from partners Samsung, Warby Parker, Gentle Monster, and Gucci parent company Kering.
Additionally, Meade reportedly led development on other AI-related wearables, which includes the company’s ongoing AR glasses efforts—expected to materialize sometime before 2030.
Fletcher Rothkopf, Meade’s deputy in charge of product design function for Vision Pro and its smart glasses, is reportedly taking over Meade’s responsibilities in the meantime.
Bloomberg maintains Meade will work alongside former Apple colleagues and luminary designers Jony Ive, Tang Tan and Evans Hankey, who respectively left Apple over the years to eventually found AI hardware startup ‘io’, which OpenAI acquired last year for $6.5 billion.
This follows the departure of Apple CEO Tim Cook, who is set to be replaced by John Ternus, a long-time Apple veteran and Senior Vice President for Hardware Engineering. Ternus was also heavily involved in the launch of Vision Pro in addition to a slew of core Apple products.
Notably, prior to joining Apple in 2001, Ternus actually worked at Virtual Research Systems, a now-defunct VR hardware company making some of the first commercially available VR headsets.
Bloomberg characterizes Ternus’ ascension to CEO a controversial move within Apple’s hardware engineering unit, which has led to a shakeup that has reportedly sidelined a number of executives.
Apple has reportedly also deemphasized Vision Pro is recent months, cancelling a cheaper and lighter XR headset—previously expected for release in 2027—in favor of developing smart and AR glasses.
