On June 20, 2025, Bloomberg reported that Apple executives had held internal talks about buying AI search startup Perplexity. Reuters echoed the story the same day, and the analysis chorus started immediately: if such a deal ever happened, it would blow far past Apple’s largest acquisition ever — the $3 billion purchase of Beats in 2014.
The response from Perplexity landed just as fast: a spokesperson called the buyout “not likely” and said no M&A discussions between the two companies had taken place. An internal-talks leak plus a founder-side denial, all within one day, put both Apple’s AI anxiety and Perplexity’s leverage on public display. Looking back from 2026, the report also reads as a footnote to Apple’s AI strategy: internally, the buy option was measured seriously, not just talked about for the press.
What Bloomberg reported
According to Bloomberg, Apple executives discussed internally the idea of buying Perplexity. The report did not say any deal had been launched or was near completion. The signal is in the verb: buying — not just partnering or investing — had made it onto the agenda inside Apple, beyond anything analysts had sketched on paper. In Apple’s style, internal discussion usually means several tracks run in parallel — acquisition, investment, deeper partnership — and the choice among them depends on the counterparty’s willingness and the antitrust environment.
For a company famous for building in-house and exercising extreme M&A discipline, even “we discussed acquiring them” is news. Once Reuters echoed the report the same day, the market started sizing up the hypothetical. Alex Kantrowitz, host of Big Technology, offered a magnitude reference: he argued Apple should offer roughly $30 billion to buy a company already valued at $14 billion with a steep growth curve.
Perplexity’s scale and valuation
In mid-2025, Perplexity was closing a $500 million round at roughly a $14 billion valuation. The usage numbers Kantrowitz cited were just as striking: Perplexity handled 780 million queries in May 2025 alone, with volume growing about 20 percent month over month. In other words, this was not a company hunting for a buyer — it was a company watching the term sheet queue. That is also why Kantrowitz argued any serious offer would have to sit far above the headline valuation: the market prices independent growth generously, and acquisition discounts do not apply to companies that do not need selling.
For scale, compare Apple’s record acquisition: Beats, for $3 billion, in 2014. At Perplexity’s current valuation, a buyout would cost more than four times that — a fundamental jump from the M&A discipline of Tim Cook’s tenure. And if Perplexity keeps raising as an independent company, the private-market price may rival any acquisition premium anyway.
Why Apple would be tempted
The motive is not hard to assemble. Kantrowitz’s judgment is blunt: Apple’s slow AI start has graduated from a product problem to a strategic crisis. While competitors fold AI search and assistants into the core of their products, Apple entered the summer of 2025 still missing a flagship AI capability to anchor its strategy.
The money angle is more urgent. Google pays Apple billions of dollars a year to remain Safari’s default search engine, and the US Department of Justice antitrust case has put that revenue stream in doubt. In Kantrowitz’s argument, buying Perplexity would kill two birds with one stone: replace the search revenue at risk, and drop a working AI search engine into Siri and Safari. That is also why analysts generally assumed that even without a full acquisition, Apple would pursue some deeper partnership or investment. Search is among the steadiest revenue streams in Apple’s ecosystem — and precisely because it is steady, the risk of losing it justifies hedging with a large acquisition.
Perplexity pours cold water
Perplexity’s own stance was clear, though. The spokesperson called the prospect “not likely” and confirmed no M&A discussions had occurred. The company’s focus, at that moment, was closing its new funding round, not selling itself — and the query growth curve is its strongest argument for staying at the table.
On deal logic, the answer makes sense: a $14 billion valuation makes any acquisition enormously expensive, with antitrust review uncertainty stacked on top. For Apple, the real problem is timing — the AI lag is a present-tense crisis, while acquisition talks remain a paper exercise. What the June 20, 2025 report left behind was an unresolved strategic question mark: buy, partner, or keep building slowly in-house?
Sources
- Bloomberg: Apple executives have held internal talks about buying AI startup Perplexity
- Big Technology: Why Apple must buy Perplexity
AI-assisted summary compiled from the sources above, reviewed by a human before publishing.