Apple I am preparing AI surprise. The stock exchange would prefer the giant to take over Perplexity
The new Apple function is to act like the answer engine – after asking Siri's question, it will return a summary from the network, enriched with multimedia and local results, without having to click dozens of links. Importantly, the Google Gemini model launched on Apple servers under the Private Cloud Compute (PCC), i.e. architecture, which the company presents as cloud processing “in the Apple style”, with an emphasis on privacy and control over data, can work under the hood.
Ultimately these possibilities They can also go to Safari browserwhich makes Apple try to add new functions and entwine them into the daily search habits of hundreds of millions of ecosystem users. If these plans come into force, they will mean that Apple finally seriously competes in the artificial intelligence sector with other giants.
World Knowledge Answers is also a symbol of a slimmed infrastructure strategy. While competitors pump tens of billions in the GPU farm, Apple bases its solution on the processing on the device and “tailor -made” PCC cloud, declaring better code security. It is a model that appeals to customers sensitive to privacy and regulators, but can be slower in providing spectacular quality jumps compared to mass, publicly trained AI models.
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Investors expect a higher speed
However, you can see the time of time on the horizon. Analysts and investors have been asking for months where AI's breakthrough is Apple. After the poor beginning of the year, the company's shares were one of the weakest items among large technology companies, and the market rewards companies with a clear, already operating AI offer today. Hence the calls of such analysts as Daniel Ives, an analyst from the Wedbush specializing in technology companies, Speaking directly: “Buy perplexity”. According to experts, this is the fastest way for Apple to give Siri and Safari a real advantage in the AI segment.
The argument “buying instead of building” is tempting, because Perplexity has grown this year from technological curiosities for a serious candidate for an alternative to larger players. The company processed, for example, 780 million queries in May alone, in parallel, developing its own Comet browser (it is worth adding, it had security problems). Added to this are hard growth indicators: valuation of $ 18 billion. After the July round, and according to the American Business Insider – there are talks about the next round and a valuation of approx. $ 20 billion.
Annual revenues in perplexity also grow, in addition and at a fast pace and The user base is already calculated in tens of millions. Such a start-up could certainly supply Apple and quickly quickly transform Siri and Safari, creating an equal competitor for the dominant Google Search in combination with Gemini models today.
The takeover of Perplexity would also have a strategic effect – it shortens the time to reach the market. Apple, even with a predominance of distribution and integration, needs months to refine your own task chains in Siri and get the quality of response acceptable on a massive scale. Turning on the finished search technology, which is already competing with AI Overviews and Chatgpt today, would allow you to bypass some of the tedious stages, And to focus on what they always do best to the Cupertino team. That is, polishing experience, integration with the system, multimodality and privacy.
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Apple wants to follow its own path
There are also reasons why Apple pushes the script from Perplexity to the side and wanders into the development of its own World Knowledge Answers. Content policy and legal risk are the basis. Perplexity regularly goes to the headers through disputes about scraping content and alleged bypassing blockades, e.g. in robots.txt files. The BBC threatened with a lawsuit, publishers in the USA and Japan formulate claims, and media investigations They point out “borrowing” of someone else's materials without the authors' consent and knowledge.
Such a reputation argues with the image of Apple as a guardian of the privacy and rights of creators. In addition, there is also a “room” with Google, which is too lucrative for the giant to risk rivalry in the AI field. It may be more favorable to build your own solution inside and parallel testing of Gemini models on Apple servers than buying a player whose business model hits Google searching.
A reconstruction is already underway on the search market. Google's participation in the world is still dominant, but it went below 90 percent. For the first time since 2015, research also shows a clear increase in the use of AI tools for search and a less tendency to click on the links when the AI summary appears on the results page. Simultaneously Opeli announced its own browserwhich – if he goes to hundreds of millions of chatgpt users – even more strongly habits of Internet users. All this creates a window in which World Knowledge Answers can hit perfectly if the spring premiere does not pass delay.
Read also: Perplexity offers advanced AI. Created an investment portfolio without any problem
Is the “Build” or “Buy” road better?
If Apple brings multimodal answers, the context from the screen and private processing on the device and PCC, powered by the best available model (even if it is Gemini), the company will strengthen the central axis of its ecosystem and maintain control over the user's experience. This is part of the giant's strategy and gives a lower risk of integration or license conflicts. However, if the market requires a demonstration of power now, and investors are fed up with waiting, perplexity acquisition would be a radical shortening of the road (immediate technology, team, growing user base and Comet browser). The price would be high, but for a company that authorized $ 110 billion in 2024. buyback, it's not prohibitive. The question is whether Apple wants to be the owner of legal and publishing risks in the heart of its brand.
Apple can bring World Knowledge Answers, at the same time aggressively licensing content and models, and invest in “complementary” acquisitions – maybe smaller than perplexity, but accelerating network mapping, AI agents and the quality of summaries. However, if Siri with the “World Knowledge” mode in the spring of 2026 turns out to be disappointment, the company's shares will probably fall quickly and the topic of taking over Perplexity will return with double force.
Author: Grzegorz Kubera, Business Insider Polska journalist
