Perplexity Is Out Here Wearing a Sandwich Board ⇥ bigtechnology.com

All of these stories were published yesterday. I am linking to them in chronological order.

Alex Kantrowitz, in his Big Technology newsletter:

Tim Cook ought to call Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas and offer him $30 billion for his AI search engine. And he should do it right away.

[…]

“Not likely!” Perplexity chief business officer Dmitry Shevelenko told me of a potential tie-up with Apple. “But Meta-Scale is so unlikely that I feel we aren’t living in a world of likelies.”

Apple and Perplexity have had no M&A discussions to date, Shevelenko added, not even a wink.

Mark Gurman, Katie Roof, and Riley Griffin, Bloomberg:

Meta Platforms Inc. held discussions with artificial intelligence search startup Perplexity AI Inc. about a possible takeover before moving ahead with a multibillion-dollar investment in Scale AI, according to people familiar with the matter.

Deirdre Bosa and Ashley Capoot, of CNBC, confirmed Bloomberg’s reporting, adding that one source “said Perplexity walked away from a potential deal”.

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. executives have held internal discussions about potentially bidding for artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI, seeking to address the need for more AI talent and technology.

You will note the day began with Kantrowitz’s article calling for Apple to buy Perplexity. It was not a reaction to Gurman’s report, which was published late in the afternoon and came after a different story about another possible Perplexity acquisition, to which Gurman also contributed. Heck of a coincidence all of these dropped on the same day.