The Perpetual Apple–Perplexity Rumour ⇥ aulia.me

Aulia Masna:

Every time someone floats the idea that Apple should acquire Perplexity to “supercharge” its AI efforts, I get whiplash, not just from the sheer strategic laziness of the suggestion, but from the deeper cultural misalignment it completely ignores. The very idea is a perplexing thought.

On the same day this past June, Alex Kantrowitz floated the idea of Apple acquiring Perplexity, and then Bloomberg published two articles claiming Apple and Meta each held discussions about an acquisition. This was around the same time the company was raising more money. I think Perplexity is very good at keeping this rumour afloat regardless of its likelihood or legitimacy. Masna is right: it feels like a poor fit, and it is unclear to me what Apple would gain beyond a crappy merch store.1

Watch Apple buy it anyway.

  1. This is barely important, but it sold a bag of coffee beans without disclosing in the listing that it is flavoured. Only if you scroll through the pictures will you see the side of the bag stating it contains “coffee flavored coffees contain natural and artificial flavoring”. Careless to heart. ↥︎