With tech vendors clamoring to prove themselves as the next possible winner in the AI race, Apple's underwhelming response in generative AI technology has produced varying estimates about how behind the iPhone maker is.
Apple did not release as many new Apple Intellligence features as was expected at its Worldwide Developers Conference 2025 last month. Meanwhile, Apple delayed new feature releases for Apple Intelligence until March 2026.
Moreover, social media giant Meta recently poached three AI researchers from Apple, leaving some holes in Apple's talent pool.
However, reports that Apple could be considering buying AI search vendor Perplexity to make its 14-year-old digital assistant Siri smarter for its 2026 revamp were well received, as many think this could be the push Apple needs.
A better Siri
While talks about Perplexity appear no longer a possibility after its CEO said he's not interested in selling the company, an acquisition might be exactly what Apple needs to revamp its AI strategy and stay current in AI technology.
"For everyday users, this could mean a version of Siri that's useful," said Dan Gardner, co-founder of Code and Theory, a digital and creative agency. "Siri isn't just problematic because it's far less powerful than other voice-driven AI tools; it's also failed to live up to its Apple Intelligence marketing promise of better integration across their app ecosystem."
Apple says it has introduced several new Siri capabilities since it launched iOS 18, which includes many Apple Intelligence features. Some of the features include Type to Siri, a more natural voice and the ability for Siri to follow along when users trip over words. The iPhone maker also says it needs more time to complete work on features such as adapting Siri to a user's personal context and enabling the ability for Siri to work like an agent and take action for a user within and across apps.
But an acquisition of a generative AI (GenAI) vendor like Perplexity could put Apple back in the serious GenAI conversation with OpenAI and Google because it would help the iPhone maker compete not just on raw intelligence but also on helping to deliver the best AI experience for everyday users, Gardner said.
"While most of the world thinks the only race is building bigger models, the hidden race is for who will own the next consumer and attention economy," he said.
Apple delivering on its promise
An acquisition could also help Apple prove that it will keep its promises about its intention to develop AI technology and restore faith in its ability to deliver on those promises.
"Apple is so behind, and they've lost so much trust and goodwill because of their faulty rollout or lack of it," said Chirag Shah, professor in the Information School at University of Washington, Seattle. "They need a step in the right direction."
He added that a possible acquisition could follow the pattern seen with other big tech vendors such as Microsoft and AWS, in which instead of creating the technology itself, they partner with or invest in companies that use the technology.
"For big companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, it's too risky to do the things that Anthropic, OpenAI or a lot of these smaller startups could do, and that's one of Perplexity's benefits," Shah said.
Moreover, AI technology is not an area in which tech giants are making significant revenue. Many of them are spending more than they make on AI.
"They have to move very cautiously," he said. "They know that this is the future, this is what people want, but would they risk everything else for that? The answer usually is no."
In Apple's case, the iPhone maker is intently focused on privacy, with most of the models that power Apple Intelligence found entirely on the device, according to Apple.
The iPhone Maker has released a few Apple Intelligence features, including Image Playground, Visual Intelligence, Live Translation, natural language search, Clean Up for images and a connection to ChatGPT.
They're definitely behind in terms of the hype.
David NicholsonAnalyst, The Futurum Group
"They're definitely behind in terms of the hype," said David Nicholson, an analyst at The Futurum Group. "They're definitely behind in terms of their messaging, but in terms of what people are delivering and the value that people will get out of what Apple will deliver long-term, I think in a year or two, it won't matter that today they appear not to be announcing things at the rate that others are."
Apple's dominance in consumer devices lies in its data, such as users' photos, calendars, email and content and interactions through the iPhone, desktops, iPads and smartwatches.
"Managing that whole universe of data is something that has to happen securely for people to take advantage of generative AI, let alone agentic AI," Nicholson said. "The real win will be when Apple figures out how to put the pieces together on the back ends through probably many acquisitions."
Acquiring companies is part of Apple's business approach, Nicholson added. For example, services such as iTunes and even Siri started as acquisitions that Apple integrated.
For Apple, the main objective is to make Siri smarter, and that could be with technology from a vendor such as Perplexity, Anthropic or OpenAI.
"The ultimate goal ... is to have Siri be able to do the kind of generative AI things that we are used to when we interact directly," Nicholson said.
"In the not-too-distant future, you'll say: 'Hey Siri.' And she would be able to execute agentic AI stuff on your behalf," he continued. "That agentic AI will, in its secure walled garden approach, be able to access all of your information in a way that makes that agentic AI effective to a billion users around the planet."
Apple is known for its emphasis on privacy and security, achieved in large part by keeping users of Apple products' data solely within the Apple ecosystem.
Also, Apple is not the only vendor that's behind in integrating GenAI into its platform.
Amazon Alexa, for example, is also not as evolved as it could be in terms of GenAI technology. However, Amazon made some notable updates to Alexa in February to provide summaries, make reservations, manage calendars and even send or receive emails.
"A lot of infrastructure needs to be put into place before you're going to be able to use that as a real digital assistant, the way that people are coming to expect they can with these other LLMs," he said.
"There is a lot of very real pressure on Apple to deliver, but I think that as time goes by, [Apple's lagging pace in GenAI] will end up not registering as meaningful," he continued.
Esther Shittu is an Informa TechTarget news writer and podcast host covering AI software and systems.
