Apple is said to be mulling over the possibility of acquiring Perplexity, an AI startup behind AI forays into search tools and chatbot tech. Business analysts are calling this a possible blockbuster acquisition, but the real story is what the deal could indicate for Apple’s future in AI and core technologies like Siri and on-device search.
Perplexity has rapidly gained recognition by pairing large language models with real-time search, turning up answers that are conversational and fact-based. This is just where Apple has been trying to go for years. Apple’s voice assistant, Siri, has been the target of criticism for years for falling behind its smarter and more responsive counterparts like ChatGPT or Google Assistant. Acquiring Perplexity could allow Apple to integrate a more intelligent, context-aware model directly into its ecosystem
One of the biggest tech constraints that Apple has faced till now is how to create a powerful AI engine that does not violate user privacy. Meanwhile, Perplexity’s AI models have shown convincing abilities to return rapid, high-quality responses, a feature that Apple could use in its on-device processing capabilities to ensure user privacy remains intact. Integrating such a system into Siri could result in faster response times, better offline functionality, and deeper understanding of user context.
The deal could also kick-start Apple’s long-term ambition to develop its own AI-based search engine. Apple currently leans heavily on Google Search, which is, sadly, seamlessly embedded into Safari and Siri. Besides being a business risk, it is also a technical limitation. Perplexity could enable Apple to build an on-device search engine native to its hardware.
From a developers’ perspective, this could potentially allow Apple to build smarter AI tools directly into iOS and macOS in the future that app makers can tap into to build more interactive and responsive apps. So far, Apple has played it safe with AI, emphasizing more on user privacy and control. But now, with stiff competition from OpenAI, Google Gemini, and Meta’s Llama, it now faces the urgent task of catching up in core generative technologies.
Apple could also utilize cloud-native and scalable capabilities of Perplexity’s AI models to integrate them directly with iCloud. This would imply that future AI improvements could be synced across all Apple devices without compromising Apple’s dedication to data privacy. And in a world that runs increasingly on conversational AI, owning the full tech stack—from chip to model to interface—could give Apple an advantage.
However, there is no formal bid yet, and the discussions are said to be at the early stages, but the move makes technical sense. For Apple, acquiring Perplexity is more than a lucrative deal as it’s a foundational piece in the rebuilding of Siri and a potential cornerstone for smarter, privacy-first AI features throughout Apple’s devices.
