OpenAI has acquired Software Applications Incorporated (SAI) is perhaps best known for the core team that created what became Shortcuts on Apple platforms. Most recently, the team has been working on Sky, a context-aware AI interface layer on top of macOS. Financial terms of the acquisition were not publicly disclosed.
“Progress in artificial intelligence is not just about advancing intelligence, but about unlocking it through interfaces that understand context, adapt to your intent, and work seamlessly,” an OpenAI spokesperson wrote in a company blog post about the acquisition. The post goes on to clarify that OpenAI plans to “bring deep integration of macOS and Sky product development into ChatGPT, with all team members joining OpenAI.”
They include SAI co-founders Ari Weinstein (CEO), Conrad Kramer (CTO) and Kim Beverett (Product Manager) – all of whom worked together for several years at Apple after Apple acquired Weinstein and Kramer's previous company, which released an automation tool called Workflows for integration shortcuts to Apple software platforms.
Three of SAI's founders left Apple to work on Sky, which uses Apple's APIs and accessibility features to provide context for what's happening on the screen to a large language model; LLM accepts user commands in simple language and executes them across multiple applications. At its best, this tool was somewhat similar to Shortcuts, but without customization and generated workflows on the fly based on user prompts.
