(Reuters) -Apple has held talks internally about acquiring French AI startup Mistral as well as Perplexity, the Information reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Apple has trailed rivals such as Alphabet’s Google and Samsung in terms of roll-out of AI features in its devices.
CEO Tim Cook signaled last month that Apple was open to larger AI-related acquisitions to accelerate its roadmap, a shift from its historically conservative M&A posture.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Perplexity, which is backed by Nvidia and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, said it is unaware of any merger conversations including the company, aside from its own acquisitions.
Apple and Mistral did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Mistral, backed by Nvidia, was valued at more than $6 billion after its Series B funding round last year and the Financial Times reported this month that the French company was in talks to raise $1 billion at a valuation of $10 billion.
Executives at the iPhone maker have held internal talks about potentially bidding for Perplexity, Bloomberg News reported earlier this year.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo and Maju Samuel)
