The cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street are worried that the company has bled more than $640 billion in market value in 2024 and fallen 16 per cent while traders piled into Meta and other rivals splashing cash on AI. Apple’s slow and underwhelming rollout of AI features has become a major sore point, overshadowing tariffs, regulation and other long-term headaches.

Citigroup analyst Atif Malik said: “Historically Apple does not do big mergers and acquisitions... the last significant deal was the $3 billion Beats buy in 2014. Investors would turn more positive if Apple could acquire or invest a meaningful stake in an established AI provider.”

So far, Job’s Mob has stubbornly stuck to its DIY mantra, even as its rivals gorge on talent and tech. But Bloomberg claims Apple execs have been whispering about acquiring Perplexity AI, a startup valued at $14 billion that could give it much-needed talent and an AI search engine.

Wedbush analyst and perennial Apple cheerleader Dan Ives called buying Perplexity a “no brainer,” saying even a $30 billion price tag would be “a drop in the bucket relative to the monetisation opportunity Apple can achieve on AI.”

Apple’s recent AI announcements, including those at June’s Worldwide Developers Conference, were met with polite shrugs. The company is reportedly considering using external AI models to power an upgraded Siri, a move that would be an embarrassing climbdown from its usual walled-garden purity.

 Zacks Investment Research senior strategist Kevin Cook the panic is overcooked but still says the iPhone maker needs to “refocus on AI talent.” He added, “Apple certainly has challenges, but this isn’t like Google, which could more easily have been usurped by competitors if it fell behind,” he said.

Meanwhile, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg is openly raiding Cupertino’s talent. Bloomberg reported Meta lured away the head of Apple’s AI models team with a pay package in the hundreds of millions over several years. Apple didn’t even try to match it. Meta recently ploughed $14.3 billion into Scale AI, showing what aggressive investment looks like.

Apple has twice the cash Meta has, with $133 billion in reserves at the end of March. It just hasn’t been willing to spend it.

There are other signs of a shake-up brewing. Chief operating officer Jeff Williams is retiring after a decade, and longtime finance chief Luca Maestri left last year. Tim Cook will stay, but Bloomberg says a wider management overhaul is coming.

LightShed Partners analysts Walter Piecyk and Joe Galone warned: “Missing on AI could fundamentally alter the company’s long-term trajectory and ability to grow at all,” even hinting Cook himself could be swapped out if Apple keeps missing the boat.

Water Tower Research, senior analyst Paul Meeks said: “A significant deal would not only help them in AI, but show it is committed to a culture change and course correction. It can’t do AI on its own.”