GoPro has unveiled the chip it hopes will rescue it. The San Mateo-based action camera maker on Monday announced the GP3, a custom 5-nanometer system-on-a-chip that the company describes as its most powerful imaging processor to date, with cameras powered by it set to ship in the second quarter of 2026, as reported by The Verge.
The GP3 is a 5-nanometer system-on-a-chip delivering more than twice the pixel-processing power of its predecessor, the GP2, with superior AI-driven image quality and low-light performance. GoPro has been shipping cameras on the GP2 since 2021, making this the company's first major silicon refresh in five years.
The new chip is designed to bring professional-level image quality, improved low-light performance, and higher resolutions and frame rates to small form-factor camera markets, including action cameras, 360 cameras, vlogging cameras, and ultra-premium compact cinema-grade cameras. GoPro founder and CEO Nicholas Woodman said in a press release that the GP3 will help the company cater to the "ultra-premium end of the imaging market" — a signal that the company is trying to expand beyond its traditional base of surfers, skydivers, and mountain bikers.
Central to the GP3's pitch is a dedicated AI Neural Processor Unit integrated directly into the chip, giving it more than twice the pixel-processing capability of the GP2. Power efficiency and thermal performance are expected to significantly outperform the competition, resulting in what GoPro calls industry-leading runtimes in demanding environmental conditions. Whether those claims hold up against rival products from DJI and Insta360 remains to be seen.
The announcement lands against a backdrop of genuine corporate urgency. GoPro deliberately sacrificed 2025 hardware sales to prepare for a 2026 product renaissance built around the GP3, a calculated pause that management believes will yield significant upside after years of market-share erosion. The company did not release a new flagship HERO camera in 2025, a move that Woodman described as strategic in preparation for 2026 launches. That decision cost it dearly in the short term: Woodman acknowledged that sell-through fell 18 per cent year-on-year partly because no new flagship Hero camera was released in 2025.
GoPro's subscription business, generating gross margins above 70 per cent from roughly 2.42 million subscribers, has become the company's most profitable product line, providing a profit engine that partially offsets declining camera unit sales. That recurring revenue gives GoPro some runway, but it is not unlimited. The company's stock was trading at around $0.89, well below its 52-week high, and the shares fell 7.76 per cent on the day of the announcement alongside broader declines in consumer electronics peers.
For 2026, GoPro is forecasting adjusted EBITDA above $40 million and operating expenses of approximately $250 million, slightly below 2025 levels. The plan relies on several key assumptions: successful GP3-based product launches, continued subscription growth, and the ability to offset roughly half of an expected $45 million tariff impact through pricing adjustments and supply-chain diversification. That last point is no small ask given the current volatility in US trade policy.
There is a reasonable case that the GP3 could be transformative. The chip enables capabilities that GP2-based cameras cannot support, including advanced AI processing, significantly improved low-light performance, and the computational power needed for real-time 360-degree stitching. The company's AI content-licensing programme adds another dimension: subscribers who contribute footage to train GoPro's video models earn 50 per cent of third-party licensing revenue, and since the programme launched in July 2025, contributors have uploaded more than 270,000 hours of video content.
At the same time, GoPro's competitive position has weakened considerably over the past few years. DJI and Insta360 have moved aggressively on both quality and price, and the broader action camera market is widely regarded as saturated. Market saturation in the action camera segment remains a real challenge, even as new product categories may help offset some of the pressure. The GP3 announcement is a credible technological step, but a chip reveal is not the same as a product in customers' hands.
For Australian consumers and content creators, GP3-powered cameras will likely arrive at retailers later in 2026 at a price point that has yet to be disclosed. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission does not regulate camera pricing, but import tariff pressures in GoPro's supply chain could affect the Australian retail price, depending on how costs are passed through globally. Separately, the arrival of the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra last week, with its advanced stabilisation features historically associated with dedicated action cameras, shows that GoPro's real competitive fight extends well beyond Insta360 and DJI.
GoPro has earned scepticism after years of overpromising and financial underperformance. But the GP3 represents a genuinely new foundation rather than an iterative upgrade, and the company's decision to skip a year of flagship releases in order to build properly around a new chip is, at minimum, a coherent strategy. Whether it translates into the revenue recovery management is projecting is a question that will be answered in the second half of this year, not in a press release.