OpenAI has released its first piece of hardware, a $230 mini keyboard billed as a "command centre for agentic work," but alongside it the company is also selling a branded basketball, part of what it calls its "Pause. Play. Prompt." campaign. The listing frames the £70 (roughly $70) rubber ball as "a physical reminder that creativity doesn't just live on our screens," seemingly encouraging users to step away from their screens even as OpenAI expands its AI tools. Commentators have questioned who the product is really aimed at, given the incongruity of an outdoor sports item branded by an AI chatbot company.

The basketball is made entirely of rubber, making it more weather-resistant than professional leather balls, and is priced at what TechCrunch notes is the equivalent of about 56 million GPT-5 input tokens. It forms part of a wider merchandise line that includes inspirational slogan wear, such as a top reading "Good research takes time," and a $175 quarter-zip jumper with "research" embroidered in cursive, described as evoking "our days in academia." The releases have drawn scepticism about their target audience and product-market fit, with comparisons drawn to other much-mocked AI hardware ventures.