Sam Altman gave Samsung's top executives a tiny keyboard built for Codex

A gift with a message

As The Korea Times reported, Sam Altman visited a Samsung Group training center in Yongin, in Gyeonggi Province, on Saturday. He took part in a fireside chat, an informal on-stage conversation, with more than 50 presidents from Samsung Electronics and other Samsung affiliates.

At the event he gave each executive a Codex Micro keyboard. Codex is OpenAI's coding agent, an AI that can carry out programming tasks on a person's behalf. Altman described the gift as a taste of OpenAI's view of how people will use computers in the future.

His argument, as relayed by the paper, was that a full-size keyboard may matter less once people can simply speak to their computers and let AI do the work. He added that the pad could help people use Codex faster.

What is actually in the box

The Codex Micro is not meant for typing sentences. It is a macro pad, a small panel of buttons that each trigger a preset action. It is the first hardware product sold under the OpenAI name, and it was developed with Work Louder, a company that specializes in mechanical keyboards.

• 13 mechanical switches, one of them a Talk button
• A rotary dial that adjusts how much reasoning the AI applies
• A joystick and touch sensors
• Lighting that shows whether the AI agent is thinking things through or carrying out a task

The report describes it as built for vibe coding, a loose term for building software by telling an AI what you want in plain language instead of writing every line yourself. The status lights are a neat touch: they let you glance at the pad and see what the agent is doing, much as you would check on a colleague working nearby.

The price is $230, and the keyboard was sold out when the article ran.

Why Samsung was the audience

The gift landed in the middle of a growing relationship. Last October the two companies put their names to a letter of intent, an early statement that they plan to work together, on building AI infrastructure around the world. That includes supplying memory chips for Stargate, OpenAI's large data center project.

Other Samsung units joined in. The group's IT services arm, Samsung SDS, said it would help on data centers and AI services for businesses. Samsung C&T and Samsung Heavy Industries are to work on data centers that float offshore.

Contact at the top has been steady too. Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong went to OpenAI's San Francisco headquarters in July. On the same Saturday as the Yongin event, Altman also shared a lunch in central Seoul with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won. SK hynix and SK Telecom executives were reportedly present.

The hardware question

Altman also told the Samsung executives that simply adopting AI will not give a company lasting advantage. In his telling, the payoff comes from using AI to make better products.

OpenAI has not confirmed its product plans. Still, rumors have named several devices: a smart home speaker with a built-in camera, reportedly being developed with former Apple designer Jony Ive, plus AI glasses and AI earbuds. Gadgets like earbuds and glasses need a processor, the chip that runs the device, that can handle AI features on the device itself.

That is where Samsung could come in. Reports earlier this year said Samsung might supply 2-nanometer Exynos processors for OpenAI's upcoming hardware. Those are reports only, and OpenAI has said nothing to confirm them.

How much to read into it

This is a light, human-interest story, and it is worth keeping it in proportion. A keyboard handed out at a corporate event is not a contract, and nothing in the report gives terms for any new deal. The Korea Times itself frames the gift as a window into OpenAI's thinking, not as a business announcement.

Even so, it tells you where OpenAI is putting its energy. The first physical product with its name on it is built around Codex, not around chatting. That fits a broader pattern among AI labs, which are competing hard to be the tool people use for software work, one of the more mature uses of these systems.