Mattel taps OpenAI to help it design toys, other products

Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars, has signed a deal with OpenAI to use its artificial intelligence tools to design and in some cases power toys and other products based on its brands.

The collaboration is at an early stage, and its first release will not be announced until later this year, Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s chief operating officer, and Josh Silverman, Mattel’s chief franchise officer, said in a joint interview.

The technology could ultimately result in the creation of digital assistants based on Mattel characters, or be used to make toys and games like the Magic eight Ball or Uno even more interactive.

“We plan to announce something towards the tail end of this year, and it’s really across the spectrum of physical products and some experiences,” Silverman said, declining to comment further on the first product. “Leveraging this incredible technology is going to allow us to really reimagine the future of play.”

Mattel is not licensing its intellectual property to OpenAI as part of the deal, Silverman said, and remains in full control of the products being created. Introductory talks between the two companies began late last year, he said.

Mattel chief executive officer Ynon Kreiz has been looking to evolve the company from just a toy manufacturer into a producer of films, TV shows and mobile games based on its popular characters.

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OpenAI, meanwhile, has been courting companies with valuable intellectual property to aid them in developing new products based on iconic brands.

“The idea exploration phase of creative design for companies like Mattel and many others, that’s a critical part of the workflow,” Lightcap said. “As we think about how AI builds tools that extend that capability, I think we’re very lucky to have partners like Mattel that we can work with to better understand that problem.”

On Tuesday (Jun 10), OpenAI released its newest model – o3-pro – which can analyse files, search online and complete other tasks that made it score especially well with reviewers on “comprehensiveness, instruction-following and accuracy,” the company said.

OpenAI held meetings in Los Angeles with Hollywood studios, media executives and talent agencies last year to form partnerships in the entertainment industry and encourage filmmakers to integrate its new AI video generator into their work.

In the meetings, led by Lightcap, the company demonstrated the capabilities of Sora, a service that at the time generated realistic-looking videos up to about a minute in length based on text prompts from users.

OpenAI has not struck any deals with movie studios yet because it still has to establish a “level of trust” with Hollywood, Lightcap said in May at a Wall Street Journal conference in New York. BLOOMBERG