Apple Reported to Discuss Acquiring Perplexity as Meta Once Mulls Takeover B...

TMTPOST -- Perplexity AI is reported to be tech giants’ target, highlighting potential of the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered web search engine.

Credit：Pixabay

Apple Inc.'s head of mergers and acquisitions, Adrian Perica, services SVP Eddy Cue and the company's other executives have been in early stage talks about possible acquisition of Perplexity, Bloomberg reported. Apple has not yet made a formal bid, but its top executives have met with Perplexity several times over the past few months, according to the report.

Apple executives have reportedly considered multiple scenarios involving Perplexity. Besides a full acquisition, which would allow Apple to integrate Perplexity’s AI tech directly into Siri or a braoder Apple-run search platform, another option is a partnership that would enable Apple’s integration of Perplexity tech into iPhone operating system iOS to power a native AI search experience. The ultimate goal is to make Siri smarter as Apple is delaying the AI features that would supercharge the voice assistant, and set the release target of spring 2026 at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) earlier this month.

Acquiring Perplexity could be a strategic fallback for Apple if U.S. regulators require the company to terminate its partnership with Google, which keeps Chrome the default search engine on iOS. A U.S. judge in August 2024 ruled Google had violated federal antitrust law in order to make sure Google’s online search dominance.

A separate Bloomberg report said Meta Platforms, Inc. used to mull takeover of Perplexity as well. Meta earlier this year was reported to try to scoop up Perplexity before investment into data-labeling startup Scale AI. Meta approached Perplexity about a potential takeover bid before moving ahead withScale AI, CNBC echoed the report on Friday. Meta and Perplextiy didn’t finalize a deal, per CNBC’s sources. One of the sources said to dissolve the discussion was the two sides’ mutually decision, while another said Perplexity walked away from a potential deal.

The reported talks with Perplexity was one of the latest efforts of Meta’s AI push. Scale AI on June 13 confirmed recent news that Meta is going to invest $14.3 billion into the startup and take a 49% stake in it, without any voting power. The investment is one of Meta’s largest-ever outside investments as well as one of its most aggressive bets on AI. Scale AI founder Alexander Wang said in a post on X taht he’s resigning as CEO and joining Meta along with a small number of Scale AI employees.

Meta on June 13 confirmed it has finalized its strategic partnership and investment in Scale AI. “As part of this, we will deepen the work we do together producing data for AI models and Alexandr Wang will join Meta to work on our superintelligence efforts,” said a Meta spokesperson. “We will share more about this effort and the great people joining this team in the coming weeks.”

Previous reports suggested Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was so frustrated with the Facebook parent’s standing in AI that he’s willing to spending billions of dollars to convince Scale AI founder Wang to join his company.

Zuckerberg is creating a new AI research lab dedicated to pursuing “superintelligence”, a hypothetical A.I. system that exceeds the powers of the human brain, and has tapped Scale AI CEO Wang to join the new lab, the New York Times reported on June 10. It was reported that Meta has offered compensation packages between seven and nine figures to AI researchers from top competitors, some of whom have accepted. Bloomberg the same day reported Zuckberg is hiring a team of top AI talents for Meta’s “superintelligence” lab. Zuckerberg has been personally leading recruiting for the team of about 50 people — and has even rearranged Meta's offices so the new hires sit near him, per the report.