Tim Cook hints Apple is open to M&A to bolster its AI strategy

Apple CEO Tim Cook has recently confirmed that the company’s aggressive strategy to ramp up its artificial intelligence capabilities remains open to mergers and acquisitions to accelerate advancement in the AI front.

The remarks were particularly made this week following the company’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call.

It has been made clear that Apple’s next generation AI-powered Siri will launch in 2026.

In this regard, Tim said, “We’re making good progress on it and as we have shared, we expect to release it next year.”

In response to the analysts' questions about developing personalized AI, the Apple CEO responded that the company is effectively monitoring the market for acquisitions and is open to pursuing M&A if it believes it will advance its long-term plan.

Apple has plans to officially announce more AI partnerships, like the one with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into Siri and Apple Intelligence.

Meanwhile the company's prime motive is to create and deploy foundation models, and it is through their use in devices and within Private Cloud Compute-Apple’s cloud intelligence system-that it works efficiently for private AI processing.

On the other hand, the company has been utilizing its Private Cloud Compute technology for distinct Siri queries and is effectively building out the infrastructure in line with the company's mission.

Nonetheless, the company indicated that AI has a crucial role in shaping consumers’ purchasing decisions and is breaking with conventional M&A practices and is now explicitly working to acquire companies to accelerate its Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategy.