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Forbes
03-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Apple's Big AI Bet: Could Perplexity Be A Game Changer?
Apple and Artificial Intelligence Apple's stock is down nearly 20% so far in 2025, making it the only Magnificent Seven member in the red. Acquiring Perplexity AI, a leading AI search engine, could immediately boost investor confidence and give Apple a chance to seize AI leadership. The stakes are clear: On June 28, 2025, Bloomberg revealed that Apple's M&A chief, Adrian Perica, had discussed acquiring Perplexity with services head Eddy Cue. Analysts estimate such a deal could cost between $25 and $30 billion, roughly twice Perplexity's last funding round valuation, and consistent with recent acquisition premiums paid for strategic AI properties. Days later, reports emerged that Apple is also weighing partnerships with Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT to power a new Siri. Apple is racing to close its AI gap through whatever means necessary. Industry experts and Wall Street analysts believe a Perplexity deal could recast Apple as an AI orchestration leader, extend its high-margin services through renewed hardware demand, and potentially trigger a valuation rerating. Disclaimer: This article is based solely on publicly available information, market reports, and the author's independent research and analysis. The author has no insider contacts at Apple, Perplexity, Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon, Samsung, or any other company mentioned, and no direct knowledge of their internal strategies, acquisition decisions, or future plans. All strategic interpretations are speculative and intended for informational purposes only. The Revolutionary Vision: Invisible AI Orchestration Apple is reportedly considering acquiring Perplexity AI not just to buy another chatbot, but to build what could become the world's first consumer AI orchestration platform. Instead of forcing users to choose between ChatGPT, Claude, or Google Search, its system would automatically call upon the best model for each task. This embodies Apple's 'it just works' philosophy, delivering seamless, intelligent experiences that are intuitive, invisible, and effortlessly powerful. This isn't just about catching up in AI. It's about redefining how humans interact with it. Using intent recognition (understanding what the user wants—like checking the weather vs drafting an email) and query analysis (figuring out the best way to answer—like searching real-time data vs explaining a concept), the system routes requests in milliseconds. Here's how it could work: For example, ask, 'Should I invest in Apple stock?' Perplexity pulls the latest market data and analyst commentary, with citations. ChatGPT explains investing principles and risk factors in conversational language. Apple Intelligence then combines everything into one smart, personalized response. Whether you're asking Siri a question, pointing your camera at a landmark, or drafting an email, each AI model contributes its unique strength, fused into one unified experience. Daily examples of this ambient intelligence include: "What's the weather?" → Apple Intelligence delivers local results on-device; "Cancel my meeting politely." → ChatGPT drafts the diplomatic email; "Any new research on quantum computing?" → Perplexity surfaces the latest studies; "Set a timer for 10 minutes." → Apple Intelligence handles it privately, on-device. Personal data remains protected on-device, with only anonymized queries sent to external services when necessary. Users retain override control, but most interactions become ambient and invisible. Strategic Rationale: Why Perplexity Fits Apple's Ecosystem If Apple pursues an orchestration strategy, it would likely rely on each AI partner playing a specialized role. ChatGPT excels at conversation, Claude at reasoning, and Perplexity at real-time, citation-backed search. Unlike general LLMs, Perplexity is an AI-native search engine specialized for real-time, citation-backed answers atop these models. Think of Perplexity as Google Search reimagined for the AI era. Instead of giving you a list of blue links to sift through, it delivers direct, citation-backed answers in clear, conversational language, summarizing multiple sources so you can decide intelligently what to explore further. It also provides cues on related topics worth investigating. For example, when you ask 'Should I buy Coinbase stock?', Perplexity doesn't just list articles. It offers a structured, conversational analysis including current price, valuation ratios, Morningstar fair value, fundamental risks, technical ratings, and professional opinions—all in one place—followed by suggested related questions like options strategies, historical comparisons, and upcoming catalysts. The acquisition logic becomes clear when comparing alternatives. ChatGPT's $300 billion valuation makes acquisition prohibitive, while partnerships suffice for conversational needs. Claude, valued at $61.5 billion, could cost $80–90 billion with market premiums, unjustifiable when licensing suffices. At a $14 billion last funding round valuation, Perplexity is the attainable target, with specialized search capabilities and an orchestration-ready architecture that appears well-suited to Apple's potential orchestration approach. Apple and Perplexity The Revenue Multiplier Effect: How Perplexity Pays for Itself Currently, Perplexity generates just under $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), doubling from ~$50 million in late 2024—a fraction of its potential under Apple's vast distribution and financial moat. With more than 2.2 billion active devices, a premium user base, and seamless payment infrastructure, its revenue baseline could expand dramatically. Even at a 30% conversion rate among more than 2.2 billion devices, priced at $15 to $20 per month, consumer revenue alone could reach $2.4 to $3.2 billion annually. Enterprise markets offer additional upside, as AI tools command premium pricing: Microsoft Copilot starts at $30 per user monthly, Lexis+ runs around $300–400 per attorney per month, Westlaw starts near $133 and rises for advanced tiers, and Bloomberg Law costs roughly $6,000 per lawyer annually. Law firms spend up to $21,000 per attorney on specialized research tools, while major universities allocate up to $12.5 million annually to digital resources. Pre-installed across Apple's ecosystem, Perplexity would gain instant reach unmatched by competitors, transforming it from a standalone service into a defensible, multibillion-dollar AI search powerhouse. Combined consumer and enterprise potential creates a clear path to recovering the estimated $30 billion acquisition cost within a decade or sooner, and could catapult Apple onto offense rather than leaving it on the defensive. Financial Analysis: Acquisition Beats Partnership Apple's current partnership with ChatGPT illustrates the limitations of relying on external AI providers. Each query requires user permission, incurs per-request costs, and faces security restrictions and delays due to routing through external providers. More importantly, these models cannot fully leverage Apple's Neural Engine architecture to deliver optimal performance. The Microsoft–OpenAI relationship offers a cautionary parallel. Despite Microsoft's $13 billion investment, strategic tensions have emerged as it now competes directly with OpenAI in search, coding, and enterprise AI services. OpenAI has even considered filing antitrust complaints against Microsoft, and ongoing governance disputes continue to hinder both companies' strategic goals. Acquiring Perplexity AI could avoid these partnership pitfalls while delivering four key advantages. Seamless integration could eliminate permission prompts for factual queries, remove external API dependencies, and reduce latency through direct local processing. Hardware optimization could allow Perplexity's search models to run natively on Apple's M4 Neural Engine, minimizing network delays while maintaining privacy through unified memory architecture. The deal could also provide immediate talent acquisition—Apple would instantly gain proven AI experts who've already built a successful search-AI hybrid at scale. This specialized expertise could become crucial as Siri improvements remain delayed until at least 2026. Moreover, top talent attracts top talent: having Perplexity's team in-house could significantly enhance Apple's ability to recruit other leading AI researchers. Finally, cost efficiency could emerge from owning the highest-volume use case—factual queries—allowing Apple to avoid per-API-call expenses while continuing to license specialized conversational models only where necessary. Competitive Implications: The Platform Differentiation Play This orchestration approach creates multiple competitive advantages: For users: No more wondering which AI tool to download or try, or AI app hopping. Just ask and get the best answer from whichever AI knows best. For Apple: It could deliver the unified experiences users expect from Apple and create true platform differentiation. While Android users juggle separate apps, iPhone users could get everything integrated intelligently. For competitors: In the face of Apple's seamless AI orchestration, their offerings may quickly feel outdated and like disjointed point solutions. Microsoft's Copilot could seem bolted-on, Google's AI Overviews might remain limited to a single Gemini-driven perspective, and Meta could continue focusing mainly on social features. Just as the iPhone transformed how we used phones, Apple's orchestration could transform how we use AI. On the other hand, if rivals like Google, Microsoft, or Amazon were to acquire Perplexity instead, they could embed it deeply at the OS level, leaving Apple to continue developing such solutions in-house, where it has seen only limited success so far. Acquiring Perplexity could put Apple on a fast track to deliver the premium 'wow' experiences it is known for, securing advantages that could be extremely costly for competitors to counter. Samsung's reported partnership discussions with Perplexity this year add immediate pressure. Preferential Android access could not only weaken Apple's differentiation but also drive Perplexity's acquisition cost even higher. While Apple is late to AI, monetization remains largely unproven across the industry, giving it a rare chance to leapfrog competitors by executing orchestration better than anyone else. Execution Risks The challenges are significant. Bringing together multiple AI systems at Apple's scale will be an enormous engineering lift. Orchestrating requests in milliseconds without glitches demands flawless backend architecture. Apple's brand is built on privacy: even anonymized external queries could trigger user concerns if transparency isn't crystal clear. With Siri upgrades delayed to 2026, a 12 to 18-month Perplexity integration risks missing the AI wave entirely if rivals move faster. The estimated $30 billion price tag could rise further if other bidders enter the fray. These risks are real, but with AI becoming the next battleground, Apple may have no choice but to tackle them head-on if it wants to become a leader. The $30 Billion Question The stakes are high. This move could trigger a valuation rerating and preserve Apple's leadership in the next tech battleground. However, delay or indecision risks ceding ground to rivals and forfeiting a valuable strategic edge. This orchestration bet could redefine human-AI interaction, but only if Apple acts decisively before the window closes.
Mint
23-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Apple weighs Perplexity AI acquisition, eyes AI-powered search alternative: Report
Apple Inc. is reportedly weighing the possibility of acquiring artificial intelligence (AI) startup Perplexity AI, as the tech giant steps up efforts to enhance its generative AI capabilities and potentially reduce its reliance on Google for search services. According to sources familiar with the matter, Adrian Perica, Apple's head of mergers and acquisitions, has been engaged in preliminary discussions with services chief Eddy Cue and senior figures leading Apple's AI strategy, reported Bloomberg. While the deliberations possibly remain in their early stages and no formal offer has been tabled, the potential move reflects Apple's growing urgency to secure both advanced AI technology and top-tier talent. A deal with Perplexity could position Apple to develop its own AI-powered search engine, a strategic hedge as its lucrative, long-standing agreement with Google faces mounting scrutiny from US antitrust regulators. That partnership, which makes Google the default search engine on Apple devices, reportedly earns the iPhone maker an estimated $20 billion annually. However, its future remains uncertain pending the outcome of a major antitrust trial. As of now, Apple has not approached Perplexity's management directly regarding a takeover. Meanwhile, the AI firm stated it was unaware of any acquisition discussions. Apple, true to form, has declined to comment. Perplexity, valued at $14 billion following a recent funding round, offers real-time answers to user queries by drawing from current web data, positioning itself as a next-generation alternative to conventional search engines. Any deal approaching its valuation would mark the largest acquisition in Apple's history, surpassing its $3 billion purchase of Beats Electronics in 2014. The competition for AI talent is intensifying. Meta is also in advanced talks to recruit Daniel Gross, co-founder of Safe Superintelligence Inc. Apple, however, is attempting to lure Gross back into its fold. Gross previously sold his startup Cue to Apple in 2013, a move that played a key role in shaping Apple's early AI functionalities. His co-founder, Robby Walker, recently transitioned from leading Siri to spearheading an Apple initiative called 'Knowledge', which is focused on developing a ChatGPT rival using real-time internet data. Internally, Apple has held multiple technical discussions with Perplexity in recent months, evaluating its platform and capabilities. The company is also reportedly exploring the possibility of a strategic partnership instead of a full acquisition. One such option includes integrating Perplexity into Safari as a search engine alternative and embedding its features into Siri. Cue, who oversees Apple's services division, including iCloud and Apple TV+, previously acknowledged Perplexity's promise while testifying at the Google antitrust trial. 'We've been pretty impressed with what Perplexity has done,' he noted, adding that the future of internet search is increasingly being shaped by AI-driven solutions rather than traditional engines. (With inputs from Bloomberg)
Entrepreneur
23-06-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Apple Reportedly Exploring Acquisition of Perplexity AI in Strategic AI Push
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. Apple has reportedly initiated early-stage internal discussions about a potential acquisition of Perplexity AI, according to multiple media sources. While the tech giant has not yet approached Perplexity's leadership directly, Apple's M&A chief Adrian Perica has allegedly discussed the possible deal with senior executives, including services head Eddy Cue and other key figures in its artificial intelligence (AI) division. The interest in Perplexity signals Apple's growing focus on strengthening its AI offerings, particularly in the search domain. If pursued, the acquisition could lead to the integration of Perplexity's AI-driven search capabilities into Apple's Safari browser. Such a move would mark a notable departure from Apple's current reliance on Google as the default search engine and could reshape the competitive landscape in consumer search technology. The discussions come amid a broader industry trend of tech firms ramping up investments in AI to gain a competitive edge. Apple recently unveiled "Apple Intelligence" as part of its iOS updates, underscoring its intent to enhance user experiences through generative AI. Other major players, including Meta, have also shown interest in Perplexity; Meta was reportedly considering an acquisition earlier this year. Meanwhile, the company has committed significant funds around USD 15 billion to partnerships like Scale AI. Perplexity, known for its AI-powered search tools that provide direct, summarised answers to user queries, has seen rising popularity as an alternative to traditional search engines. The company is backed by NVIDIA and recently completed a funding round valuing it at USD14 billion. This valuation places Perplexity among the top AI startups globally and highlights the increasingly high stakes in the generative AI sector.
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Business Standard
23-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Apple eyes Perplexity acquisition? What's at stake for Google, Samsung
Apple is reportedly exploring a potential acquisition of Perplexity AI, the US-based AI start-up. According to a recent Bloomberg report, Apple executives, including mergers and acquisitions head Adrian Perica, services chief Eddy Cue, and key decision-makers in AI, have held internal discussions about making a bid for the company. While there has been no confirmation from Apple, Perplexity told Bloomberg, 'We have no knowledge of any current or future M&A discussions involving Perplexity.' If Apple proceeds, the deal could give it a much-needed boost in AI talent, an established brand in the generative AI space, and a consumer-facing product. However, ongoing deals between Perplexity and other tech companies, notably Samsung and Motorola, could complicate the process. Bloomberg also reported that Meta attempted to buy Perplexity earlier this year. Here's a breakdown of what an Apple-Perplexity deal could mean for the companies involved: What Apple stands to gain from the Perplexity AI acquisition? A Perplexity acquisition would support Apple's efforts to develop its own AI-based search engine, a strategic move amid growing uncertainty around its lucrative deal with Google. Bloomberg reported that Apple currently earns an estimated $20 billion a year by making Google the default search engine in Safari, but that agreement is under scrutiny from US antitrust regulators. The potential acquisition also reflects Apple's wider push to catch up in the generative AI race. Despite unveiling its Apple Intelligence platform at WWDC 2024, the company remains behind competitors in core features. Siri's planned upgrade was even delayed earlier this year, with a revised rollout now targeted for next spring. By bringing Perplexity in-house, Apple would not only gain a robust AI product but also absorb a skilled team already working at the forefront of AI-powered search. The acquisition could further accelerate the development of next-gen Apple Intelligence capabilities. Samsung and Motorola partnerships at risk? Bloomberg previously reported that Samsung Electronics is close to finalising a major partnership with Perplexity. This would include preloading Perplexity's assistant and app onto Samsung devices and integrating its search technology into Samsung's native web browser. Talks have also involved incorporating Perplexity into Samsung's own voice assistant, Bixby. Samsung is reportedly aiming to announce these integrations as early as this year, potentially making Perplexity a default assistant option on its upcoming Galaxy S26 series. The South Korean giant is also expected to be a major participant in Perplexity's next funding round. Motorola already has an active partnership with Perplexity. On select Motorola smartphones, including the Edge 60 Pro, users can choose between Perplexity AI, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot as their default assistant. While there is no indication yet that these partnerships are under threat, they could present a hurdle if Apple moves ahead with an acquisition. Bloomberg also noted that Apple is weighing an alternative: partnering with Perplexity rather than acquiring it outright. Such a deal would involve integrating Perplexity's AI search into Safari and possibly into Siri as an additional intelligence layer. What Apple Perplexity AI Deal could mean for Google An Apple-Perplexity alliance, whether through acquisition or partnership, would be a clear challenge to Google's dominance on iOS devices. For now, Google Search remains the default on Safari, but a Perplexity-powered alternative could alter the balance of power, particularly if antitrust regulators force changes to the current arrangement. Separately, Perplexity's growing relationship with Samsung is another potential concern for Google. Although Google's Gemini AI is already integrated into Samsung's Galaxy devices, including being set as the default assistant, Samsung's collaboration with Perplexity suggests a shift toward diversifying its AI offerings. If Samsung deepens its partnership with Perplexity, it could mark a strategic move away from sole reliance on Google and toward supporting a broader AI ecosystem.
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Yahoo
Apple 正考慮收購 Perplexity？也可能將該 AI 搜尋引擎直接整合到 Siri 中
據彭博社報導，Apple 目前正在考慮收購 AI 搜尋引擎初創公司 Perplexity。據稱公司併購負責人 Adrian Perica 已經與服務高級副總裁 Eddy Cure 及其他高層決策者討論了這一想法，但此事目前尚處於早期階段，Apple 並未發出任何要約。除了潛在的收購外，Apple 內部也有探討直接開發由 Perplexity 驅動的引擎方案，並將其整合到 Siri 當中的可能性。 此前在為 Google 的搜尋壟斷案出庭作證時，Eddy Cue 曾透露 Apple 有想過為 Safari 加入 Perplexity 的服務。如果監管方最終要求 Apple 終止與 Google 的預設服務合作關係，那 Perplexity 估計會成為熱門的候補之一。除此之外，若是 Apple 真的把 Perplexity 收入麾下，那吸納進來的 AI 人才也會為急需扭轉口碑的 Apple Intelligence 帶來不少幫助。 更多內容： AI 版 Google？Perplexity AI 每月查詢量達 7.8 億次，AI 瀏覽器快將推出 HKT 送 Perplexity Pro 免費一年試用！即睇換領資格 緊貼最新科技資訊、網購優惠，追隨 Yahoo Tech 各大社交平台！ 🎉📱 Tech Facebook： 🎉📱 Tech Instagram： 🎉📱 Tech WhatsApp 社群： 🎉📱 Tech WhatsApp 頻道： 🎉📱 Tech Telegram 頻道：
