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.

Adrian Perica, the company’s head of mergers and acquisitions, has weighed the idea with services chief Eddy Cue and top AI decision-makers, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The discussions are at an early stage and may not lead to an offer, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. 

Such a deal would help Apple develop an AI-based search engine, part of efforts to cope with the potential loss of a longstanding arrangement with Google. That partnership, which involves making Google the default browser on devices, generates roughly $20 billion a year for Apple — and is now under threat from US antitrust enforcers.

To date, Apple executives haven’t discussed a bid with Perplexity management. Bloomberg News reported earlier Friday that Meta Platforms Inc. tried to buy Perplexity earlier this year. 

“We have no knowledge of any current or future M&A discussions involving Perplexity,” the AI startup said in a statement. Apple declined to comment. 

Read More: Meta Discussed Buying Perplexity Before Investing in Scale AI

The Perplexity service provides real-time answers to questions using the latest information from the web. If Apple were to engage in talks to buy the startup, such a move likely wouldn’t happen until a decision is made in the Google antitrust trial. That’s when Apple would know whether its lucrative Google agreement may have to be unwound.

Google shares reversed gains and fell nearly 1% in late trading after Bloomberg reported on Apple’s Perplexity discussions.

Perplexity recently completed an investment round that valued it at $14 billion. A deal anywhere near that level would be the largest acquisition in Apple’s history. The company’s biggest transaction until now remains the $3 billion takeover of Beats in 2014 — though Apple made more recent billion-dollar deals for Intel Corp.’s modem unit and a stake in Chinese ride-sharing company DiDi.

After Meta failed to reach an agreement with Perplexity, it bought a 49% slice of Scale AI for $14.3 billion. That deal is part of Meta’s attempts to create a so-called superintelligence AI team, which will now include Scale co-founder Alexandr Wang.

Apple and Meta have been waging a broader fight for talent. Meta recently engaged in discussions to hire Daniel Gross, the co-founder of AI company Safe Superintelligence Inc. While the discussions between Meta and Gross are advanced, Apple has attempted to persuade him to join it instead.

In 2013, Gross sold a startup named Cue to Apple. That purchase helped form the basis of some early AI features in iOS, the operating system for the iPhone. And one of Gross’ Cue co-founders, Robby Walker, oversaw the Siri voice assistant until this year. Walker is now leading an Apple project dubbed Knowledge with the goal of creating a rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT that can use data from the open web.

Gross didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Perica and Eddy Cue, who both report to Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, are leading the AI acquisition and recruiting efforts.

The hunt for talent is part of a bid to catch up in generative AI. The company was slow to deliver its Apple Intelligence platform and still lags rivals in key features. A revamped Siri was delayed indefinitely this year, with the company now aiming to have it ready by next spring.

Read More: Apple Targets Spring 2026 for Release of Delayed Siri AI Upgrade

Apple unveiled a relatively meager slate of new AI enhancements at its Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month. The latest features include live translation capabilities and a deeper partnership with OpenAI on ChatGPT-based image generation.

Buying Perplexity would give Apple an infusion of AI talent, a known brand in the AI space and a consumer product. A deal could also potentially assist with future recruiting efforts.

Apple has also discussed an alternative plan: teaming up with Perplexity instead of buying it. A partnership would involve adding Perplexity as an AI search engine option in Apple’s Safari web browser and integrating it into Siri.

Apple has met multiple times in recent months with Perplexity, and its AI team has been actively evaluating the technology — a sign that it’s at least considering a close relationship with the company.

One major snag in the process could be an in-the-works deal between Perplexity and Samsung Electronics Co., which plans to announce a deep partnership with the startup. Samsung is Apple’s biggest competitor in smartphones, and AI features have become a critical new arena for the two rivals.

In its statement, Perplexity said it shouldn’t be surprising that top manufacturers want to offer the “best search and more accurate AI for their users.”

“That’s Perplexity,” the startup said.

Read More: Samsung Nears Wide-Ranging Deal With Perplexity for AI Features

Cue, whose department includes Apple’s streaming services and iCloud, previously expressed an interest in Perplexity. While testifying at the Google antitrust trial in May, he told jurors that the industry is shifting away from standard internet searches to AI tools. He outlined a scenario in which AI search engines could quickly supersede Google’s current offering.

“We’ve been pretty impressed with what Perplexity has done, so we’ve started some discussions with them about what they’re doing,” he said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Stefani Reynolds—Bloomberg via Getty Images

Meta Platforms Inc. is going up-market with its surprise hit smart glasses, rolling out new models with Oakley that are aimed at athletes and include improved video recording. 

The company on Friday launched new models based on Oakley’s HSTN design, marking the company’s first expansion away from Ray-Ban for its display-free glasses. Like the original models, the Oakley versions can make and take phone calls, play music, take pictures and video and use Meta’s artificial intelligence to answer questions about the surrounding environment. 

The new versions, which start at $399 and go up to $499 for a limited edition model with gold-colored accents, include about double the battery life, video-recording at 3K resolution and water resistance.

“We are increasingly seeing performance use cases with the Ray-Bans like people wearing them on roller coasters, cycling and being around water, so we’re trying to lean into that,” says Alex Himmel, the company’s vice president in charge of wearables, in an interview. 

Arriving at its second glasses brand was far from a sure thing. Meta’s first glasses, the Ray-Ban Stories, flopped in 2021. But its follow-up version in 2023 was a massive success, giving the social networking giant a real potential hardware stronghold in the artificial intelligence race. 

“It was crazy. Popularity caught us by surprise a bit,” Himmel said. The Ray-Bans were “going to be the last display-less pair of glasses. We said we’ll take two swings at it, and if it doesn’t work we’ll go all-in on augmented reality.” 

Instead, beyond the latest Oakley model, the company has a multi-year road map for the display-less category and is planning a follow-up pair of Oakley glasses based on the Sphera design for later this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That pair will be aimed at cyclists and have a centered camera. Friday’s model has a camera positioned in the upper corner like the Ray-Ban version.

The display-free glasses are one component of the overall Meta AI hardware strategy. The company is planning to introduce higher-end glasses with a display to view notifications and the camera view finder later this year, Bloomberg News has reported. In 2027, it aims to roll out its first true augmented reality glasses, which will blend digital apps with the real world. 

Meta’s form-factor has caught on, with several other technology companies working on competitors. Apple Inc. is planning to introduce its first glasses product at the end of 2026, Bloomberg News has reported. That device will operate similarly to the Meta product but better synchronize with the rest of the Apple ecosystem. Amazon.com Inc. also sells glasses, but their current models lack cameras.

Himmel, who said Meta has sold millions of glasses and has a “nice, increasing multiple” of purchases on a year-over-year basis each week, attributed the increased popularity to the Ray-Bans improving across a large number of “small things.” He said the audio quality and microphones started to surpass standalone earbuds, while the camera and AI quality also improved. 

Still, Himmel said battery life remains the “number one complaint” about the Ray-Ban versions. The new Oakley models can run for 8 hours on a single charge, with the charging case holding 48 hours of juice. “You should expect a 40% bump with these” he says, attributing the improvement to new battery chemistry and software optimizations — not larger battery packs. 

Like Ray-Ban, Oakley is owned by EssilorLuxottica SA, which calls Oakley its second most popular brand after Ray-Ban. Himmel said Meta will roll out new brands under the EssilorLuxottica portfolio “as fast as we can. “We’re going to have to move very quickly because in the world of fashion, stuff moves very quickly,” he says. “The stuff that is a hit right now might not be a year from now. We need to be fast to hit all the brands that we’d like to.”

The first Oakley model, becoming available for pre-order on July 11, will be the $499 limited edition pair. The $399 versions — which come in grey, black, brown and clear colors — will be released in the coming months. There will be versions with clear, transition and polarized lenses. Like with the Ray-Bans, users can swap the lenses for prescription optics.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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