Apple 'Open' to Acquisition That Accelerates AI Roadmap

Apple is "open" to an acquisition that would accelerate its AI roadmap, Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC today. Cook said that Apple sees AI as one of the "most profound technologies of our lifetime," and that the company is "significantly growing" its AI investments.

perplexity ai mac
"We're embedding it across our devices, across our platforms and across the company," Cook said. Apple has already purchased seven companies in 2025. "We're open to M&A that accelerates our roadmap," Cook added.

Apple has been losing key members of its AI team to Meta in recent weeks, and the company is already far behind competitors in AI development.

There have been rumors that Apple is considering working with Anthropic or OpenAI to develop an LLM version of Siri rather than using its own AI technology, but Apple hasn't moved forward with a partnership as of yet.

Many of the high profile AI companies would not be feasible for Apple to purchase, but the company has considered purchasing Perplexity AI. Perplexity is valued at $18 billion, so if Apple did acquire the company, it would mark Apple's largest acquisition to date.

Popular Stories

iOS 26 Feature

iOS 26.1 to iOS 26.4 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Saturday October 18, 2025 11:00 am PDT by
iOS 26 was released last month, but the software train never stops, and iOS 26.1 beta testing is already underway. So far, iOS 26.1 makes both Apple Intelligence and Live Translation on compatible AirPods available in additional languages, and it includes some other minor changes across the Apple Music, Calendar, Photos, Clock, and Safari apps. More features and changes will follow in future ...
ios 26 1 liquid glass opaque

iOS 26.1 Beta 4 Lets Users Control Liquid Glass Transparency with New Toggle

Monday October 20, 2025 10:57 am PDT by
With the fourth betas of iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS 26.1, Apple has introduced a new setting that's designed to allow users to customize the look of Liquid Glass. The toggle lets users select from a clear look for Liquid Glass, or a tinted look. Clear is the current Liquid Glass design, which is more transparent and shows the background underneath buttons, bars, and menus, while tinted ...
iphone air thickness

Apple Said to Cut iPhone Air Production Amid Underwhelming Sales

Friday October 17, 2025 8:29 am PDT by
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec). The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
iOS 26

iOS 26.0.2 Update for iPhones Coming Soon

Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet. The update will likely be released by the end of next week. Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

New iPad Pro Has Six Key Upgrades Beyond M5 Chip

Saturday October 18, 2025 10:57 am PDT by
While the new iPad Pro's headline feature is the M5 chip, the device has some other changes, including N1 and C1X chips, faster storage speeds, and more. With the M5 chip, the new iPad Pro has up to a 20% faster CPU and up to a 40% faster GPU compared to the previous model with the M4 chip, according to Geekbench 6 results. Keep in mind that 256GB and 512GB configurations have a 9-core CPU,...
iPhone Siri Glow

Some Apple Employees Have 'Concerns' About iOS 26.4's Revamped Siri

Sunday October 19, 2025 7:39 am PDT by
iOS 26.4 is expected to introduce a revamped version of Siri powered by Apple Intelligence, but not everyone is satisfied with how well it works. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said some of Apple's software engineers have "concerns" about the overhauled Siri's performance. However, he did not provide any specific details about the shortcomings. iOS 26.4 will...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
maxresdefault

Here's How the iOS 26.1 Transparency Toggle Changes Liquid Glass

Monday October 20, 2025 1:55 pm PDT by
With the fourth beta of iOS 26.1, Apple added a toggle that makes Liquid Glass more opaque and reduces transparency. We tested the beta to see where the toggle works and what it looks like. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. If you have the latest iOS 26.1 beta, you can go to Settings > Display and Brightness to get to the new option. Tap on Liquid Glass, then...
m4 macbook air blue

M5 MacBook Air Coming Spring 2026 With M5 Mac Studio and Mac Mini in Development

Thursday October 16, 2025 3:57 pm PDT by
Apple plans to launch MacBook Air models equipped with the new M5 chip in spring 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is also working on M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models that will come early in the year. Neither the MacBook Pro models nor the MacBook Air models are expected to get design changes, with Apple focusing on simple chip upgrades. In the case of the MacBook Pro, a m...

Top Rated Comments

sniffies Avatar
12 weeks ago
Before acquiring anything, how about teaching iCloud Mail how to auto-sync notification badges between iOS and macOS?

Or does that require quantum computing?
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cameltahoe Avatar
12 weeks ago
There's no rush. Record sales prove customers aren't buying the AI hype train. The media and finance guys tell lies about AI popularity just to bump up their stocks. Go walk about the street and ask regular people about AI and they look at you like you are weird.

Get it right instead of shoehorning it in quickly.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Flojomojo Avatar
12 weeks ago
I'm no expert and I haven't tried them all, but Perplexity has been more useful to me than Copilot or ChatGPT because it tries to prioritize accuracy, and it always shows its work. Like the others, it sometimes makes mistakes, but it doesn't lie confidently or hallucinate in my experience. I've paid for the $20/month plan and have been using it more than Google searches lately.

It could be a good fit for the Apple ecosystem if they don't screw it up.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Wx_Man Avatar
12 weeks ago

They're approaching 14 years with Siri. How much more time do they need?

Apple could purchase Perplexity with last quarter's profit, and have a few billion in change left over. If Cook truly sees AI as one of the "most profound technologies of our lifetime", why isn't his company leading it?
It’s because all LLMs are made and continuously trained on scraped data from every known source. None of the AI companies, not OpenAI, not Anthropic, not Meta, not Google, not DeepSeek, not Musk-Grok, etc give a rip for privacy or safety. The very reason all these LLMs exist is totally antithetical to at least what Apple has been preaching and engineering for decades. It is impossible to make a LLM that is competent with ethical, private and safe means. To do so is to limit the LLMs evolution and potential competency. And even then every LLM out there is eventually an unsafe, gaslighting, hallucinating fabulist when it gets beyond a certain amount of tokens. Apple’s dilemma vis a vis AI is not that they can’t competently engineer an LLM in-house or even outright buy Perplexity or even Anthropic. It’s that by doing either Apple instantly stops being Apple. It can no longer claim to be the paragon of safe, private and ethical computing.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
GrassShark Avatar
12 weeks ago
Doesn't Perplexity rely on models from other companies? Even setting aside their terrible reputation as a company, how would buying them even be helpful to Apple?
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Sippincider Avatar
12 weeks ago

Get it right instead of shoehorning it in quickly.
They're approaching 14 years with Siri. How much more time do they need?

Apple could purchase Perplexity with last quarter's profit, and have a few billion in change left over. If Cook truly sees AI as one of the "most profound technologies of our lifetime", why isn't his company leading it?
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)