Wall Street’s frustrated analysts want Apple to buy perplexity. He would have planned to strengthen Siri to beat him instead
Apple is at a critical crossroads in the AI race: the company works on its own local solutions, using both Siri, its intelligent assistant and Apple Intelligence, its attempted cooking directly throughout the Apple ecosystem. But with analysts increasingly urging the technology giant to make daring acquisitions, Apple will work on its own research solution fueled by AI for the web, like Perplexity or Chatgpt, which could be launched next March.
According to BloombergMark Gurman, who has profound links within Apple, the company plans to launch a research function fueled by AI entitled “World Knowning Answers”, integrated in Siri, at the beginning of next year. This system will work as a “response engine” similar to Chatgpt and the previews of Google AI, providing responses summarized to search requests.
The new Siri architecture represents a complete reconstruction using models of large languages, moving away from the first generation system that Apple could not work properly. The company has tested partnerships with Google for AI models, while retaining its own models for processing user data in order to maintain confidentiality standards.
Apple’s approach differs considerably from competitors who have invested tens of billions in AI cloud infrastructure. Instead, the company maintains its “asset light strategy”, focusing on treatment on selective devices and partnerships rather than massive investments in data centers.
Under (ai) pressure
Apple’s difficulties in AI have become painfully obvious to Wall Street observers. Although the company’s shares have rebounded recently, lowering only about 2.5% the year at the start, it is the most efficient among all seven magnificent actions and the only one to have a negative return this year. This disappointing performance comes when competitors like Nvidia and Microsoft have reached new heights, capitalizing on the Boom of AI that Apple apparently looked at the key line.
Eminent analysts, led by the Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities, have repeatedly called Apple to acquire perplexity, the rapidly growing AI search engine that has drawn significant attention from the market. Ives described such an agreement as “evidence” which could cost Apple around $ 30 billion for a company currently estimated at around 18 to 20 billion dollars. The acquisition would provide Apple with an immediate capacity for research of AI which could transform Siri and Safari, giving the company a legitimate competitor of the domination of Google’s research. Perplexity even has its own web browser now, called Comet, and it is very impressive in its own right.
“With the AI revolution, Apple is outside by looking,” said Ives The investor affairs dailyadding: “It’s an F1 race in Monza in Italy, and [CEO Tim] Cook looks at him from the stands. »»
Perplexity has shown remarkable growth, dealing with 780 million questions in May with more than 20% growth from one month to another. The company now has 22 million active users and has produced $ 150 million in annual recurring income, compared to only $ 35 million a year earlier. This trajectory aroused significant interest in investors, with the support of Nvidia, SoftBank and Jeff Bezos.
The wider research revolution
The transition to research fueled by AI represents a fundamental change in the way users find information online. Recent surveys indicate that 83% of users prefer IA research tools to traditional Google research, citing efficiency and the possibility of receiving full responses without clicking on several links.
This trend has created opportunities for companies like Perplexity and Openai, which recently announced its intention to launch its own browser powered by AI to challenge Google Chrome. The Openai browser is expected to take advantage of the 500 million weekly people active of 500 million chatgpt to put pressure on the Google advertising revenue, which represents almost 75% of alphabet income.
Google’s market market share has started to display cracks, falling below 90% for the first time since 2015. Although several factors contribute to this drop, the growing popularity of AI research tools seems to be an important engine of change.
Get Siri-ou on ai
Apple has historically preferred organic growth and smaller acquisitions focused on technology rather than major strategic purchases. Its greatest acquisition to date remains the purchase of $ 3 billion in beats in 2014.
However, the AI revolution can force Apple to abandon this prudent approach. With a market capitalization exceeding 3 dollars billions and annual share buybacks of $ 100 billion, the company certainly has financial resources to make transformative acquisitions.
The calendar for Apple’s internal research solution suggests that the company considers that it can compete without major acquisitions. In the event of success, the launch of March 2026 of improved SIRI capabilities could respond to numerous concerns of investors and demonstrate that Apple’s patient approach to AI development can always give competitive results.
