As Apple scrambles to play catch-up in the generative AI race, a new report says the company has considered making its biggest acquisition ever.
According to Bloomberg, Apple executives have held internal discussions about a potential bid for Perplexity AI, the fast-growing AI startup known for its conversational web search platform.
This would mark Apple’s biggest acquisition ever
As reported by Mark Gurman, the talks are still at an early stage and may not result in an actual offer, but the idea has reportedly been floated between Apple’s mergers and acquisitions lead Adrian Perica, services chief Eddy Cue, and top AI leadership inside the company.
Perplexity recently closed a funding round that valued it at $14 billion, which would make its acquisition an unprecedented move for Apple, well above the $3 billion Beats deal in 2014.
Here’s Gurman on the possible acquisition:
“Buying Perplexity would give Apple an infusion of AI talent, a known brand in the AI space and a consumer product. A deal could also potentially assist with future recruiting efforts.”
While the report says Apple has held multiple meetings with Perplexity in recent months, and its internal AI teams have been evaluating the technology closely, Apple declined to comment, and Perplexity said it has “no knowledge of any current or future M&A discussions”.
The case for buying Perplexity
First, there’s the looming threat of Apple’s $20 billion-a-year search deal with Google being unwound following the US government’s ongoing antitrust case. Eddy Cue himself hinted at this during his testimony earlier this year, as he claimed that the industry is pivoting away from traditional web search toward AI-driven answers.
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