Apple Reportedly Discusses Acquiring Mistral And Perplexity, But Remains Wary Of Big Deals

Apple (AAPL) has reportedly held internal discussions about potential acquisitions of French AI startup Mistral and U.S.-based Perplexity.

According to a report by The Information, investment bankers approached Apple earlier this summer with proposals for large-scale artificial intelligence deals. Apple’s response so far has been lukewarm, reflecting its historical reluctance to pursue major acquisitions, the report said.

It further noted that while peers like Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), and Alphabet’s (GOOG/GOOGL) Google have spent billions on AI partnerships and licensing agreements to secure talent and technology, Apple has mostly stuck to smaller purchases. The report also highlighted that the iPhone maker has completed about seven such deals this year, some of which have contributed to product development, but its overall approach has remained cautious.

Apple’s stock price edged 0.03% lower in midday trade. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around the tech giant trended in ‘bearish’ territory over the past day.

Mistral, based in Paris and founded in 2023, develops open-weight large language models that are designed to be smaller, faster, and easier to deploy than many U.S. competitors, while still excelling in reasoning and coding tasks. The company has pitched itself as Europe’s answer to OpenAI and Anthropic.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-based Perplexity is known for operating an AI-powered search and answer engine that combines large language models with live web indexing. Its product emphasizes transparency by citing sources alongside responses, positioning it as a potential alternative to Google in information retrieval. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around Perplexity trended in ‘bearish’ territory over the past day.  

Apple’s $20 billion agreement with Alphabet to make Google the default search engine on iPhones is still ongoing in court. It was also reported last week that Apple and Google may be deepening their relationship with a partnership to use Gemini for a revamped version of Siri, Apple’s voice assistant.

Read also: Canary Capital Files To List Trump Coin ETF

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.