Is Apple About to Buy Into AI

Instead of developing it

Jul 06, 2025

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Here’s what’s going around:

Word is that Apple is looking at buying Perplexity, an AI search engine that’s been growing fast and picking up a lot of attention.

If you’ve never heard of Perplexity, no worries. It’s not exactly a household name (yet), but it does something that could matter a lot for the future of your phone.

It answers your questions directly instead of throwing a bunch of web links at you.

Google noticed this too. And Gemini has been doing something similar lately.

Apple could be onto something.

Here’s why this matters

For years, Apple has done pretty much everything in-house. They don’t like to rely on other companies for core parts of the experience.

That’s part of how they keep their ecosystem tight, hardware, software, services, all under the same roof. But when it comes to search and AI, Apple is clearly behind.

Very clearly…

Siri has been around since 2011, but not much has changed. Ask Siri something complicated, and you’ll probably hear, “I found this on the web.”

That was fine a decade ago. Now, people expect better and more.

Meanwhile, companies like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI have rolled out tools that can write, summarize, and explain almost anything on demand. And they do it quickly, efficiently, and mostly correctly.

If Apple wants to stay relevant in this next wave of tech, it needs to catch up.

This is where Perplexity comes in

It’s an AI-powered search tool. Instead of just sending you to links, it gives you a short, sourced answer to your question.

That’s exactly the type of thing Apple could drop into Safari and Siri pretty much overnight.

No need to build it all themselves. Just buy it, plug it in, and they have an instant answer engine.

There’s also the bigger money angle.

Right now, Google pays Apple billions every single year to stay the default search engine on iPhones. This is easy money for Apple. They don’t have to do anything except make Google the default.

But that arrangement is under pressure. US regulators think the deal might break competition laws. If a court steps in and stops it, Apple loses billions and ends up without a fallback plan.

So, if Apple owned Perplexity, they’d have their own search product ready to go.

It wouldn’t be Google-level overnight, but it’s a start. And it could grow fast.

It would mean Apple could offer search that feels more private, more on-brand, and maybe even make money off ads or subscriptions. They’d control more of the user experience, and they’d be less dependent on Google.

What’s happening now is still early

There’s no official statement.

Perplexity isn’t saying much, which is what you’d expect. No company wants to spook investors or employees by spilling details mid-talks.

But reports say Apple’s mergers and acquisitions head is involved, along with senior executives who handle Apple’s big services deals.

If true, this isn’t just some wild rumor — it’s a real conversation.

Of course, there’s a chance nothing happens. Apple could decide to license Perplexity’s tech instead of buying the whole company. They could do a strategic partnership, like with ChatGPT right now. Basically, a test drive before changing something huge.

Or Perplexity could turn Apple down completely. They’re growing fast, valued at more than $1 billion, with other big partners sniffing around too. Samsung, for example, has already shown interest in working with them. So the startup might not want to be locked into just Apple’s world.

What could happen

If a deal does happen, what does it mean for people using an iPhone, or iPad, or Mac?

The most obvious change would be Safari.

Instead of searching and getting a wall of blue links, you’d get a short, clear answer at the top, and source links if you want to check.

It could also push Siri to be more useful. Imagine asking Siri something and actually getting a complete answer instead of a web search suggestion.

Nothing about this will change overnight.

Even if Apple buys Perplexity tomorrow, it will take time to roll that tech into iOS, make sure it works at scale, and brand it the Apple way.

But the fact that Apple is even in these talks shows how seriously they’re treating the AI gap. They can’t risk falling too far behind Google, Microsoft, or OpenAI.

If it isn’t too late already…

The bottom line

For now, it’s just a rumor, but it’s one that makes sense to me.

Apple rarely talks about big plans until they’re ready to launch. But when leaks like this come out, it means there’s movement behind the scenes.

If you care about how you search the web or talk to your phone, keep an eye on this one.

Apple buying Perplexity could quietly be one of the biggest shifts in how you use your iPhone in years.