Is Apple’s Interest in Perplexity a Signal of an AI Shake-Up?

Published: 27 Jun 2025

Author: Precedence Research

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Apple Inc., the world’s most valuable technology company, is navigating a turbulent 2025, as its stock performance has fallen significantly behind that of its Big Tech peers. Continuing to be the worst performer so far in the Magnificent Seven, the company's shares are down almost twenty percent throughout the current year. The slow sales rate of iPhones, geopolitical uncertainties that include tariff tensions, and, above all, the seeming marginalization by Apple in the AI revolution have made investors grow increasingly anxious over time.

Apple is now trying to hype its latest offering, a new suite of products known as Apple Intelligence, announced at the recent Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). However, the move has not gone well with Wall Street, and it has not curbed the increasing argument that the company is lagging in the artificially intelligent arms race.
Apple has its neck on the line not only in terms of market positioning or capital strategy. As analysts hint, buying Perplexity for about $ 14 billion may mark a risky yet adventurous era in Apple's capital allocation strategy. As the company is no longer exclusively interested in hardware supremacy, it focuses its efforts on establishing a solid artificial intelligence baseline. Traditionally, Apple has been a relatively conservative company when it comes to mergers and acquisitions, but the necessity to stay competitive in AI may force a change in strategy.

The purchase has far-reaching benefits other than strengthening Siri. An integration of the generative search engine offered by Perplexity might enable Apple to develop a new, in-house search experience where it will not be as reliant on Google, a company with which it currently cooperates and competes in several verticals. By providing users with a privacy-first, AI native search option to make Safari and iOS, Apple would reinvent how information could be accessed on their devices. Furthermore, Apple's integration of software and hardware can be combined with Perplexity's innovative AI, creating a user experience that would be easier and faster across the Apple ecosystem.