This year has been tough for Apple, but shares stirred to life after Bloomberg reported it may ditch its in-house AI model in favour of technology from OpenAI or Anthropic.
That would mark a big shift for a company that prefers to build its core technologies itself.
The stakes are high. Siri, once a marquee feature, now trails rivals.
Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management, whose team tested Apple’s revamped assistant, called it “a voice-activated Google search” – fine for basics like calling a contact or checking the weather, but poor at reasoning or conversation.
Even when backed by ChatGPT, Siri was sluggish, with response times up to 20 seconds. ChatGPT voice, Munster said bluntly, “feels like the future.”
Apple’s AI struggles are well-known and investors may want to leapfrog the problem by adopting a proven model.
Still, outsourcing AI comes with strategic risks, says Munster. Rely too much on external models and Apple could lose control of future development – a tension already visible in Microsoft’s ties to OpenAI.
One alternative: buy Perplexity.
The AI search start-up is model-agnostic and building a smart browser. Munster says it could boost Safari, hedge against Google Search, and give Apple more freedom to switch models.
Wedbush’s Dan Ives agrees, saying acquiring Perplexity would be a “no-brainer”.
Apple has made just three billion-dollar acquisitions. A Perplexity deal – likely over $14 billion – would mark a clear break from its cautious M&A playbook.
Still, Apple spent over $100 billion on share buy-backs last year, so it can well afford to make a big AI statement.
The question is whether it will.
