Apple has held internal discussions about potentially acquiring two fast-growing artificial-intelligence companies—Paris-based Mistral AI and California-based Perplexity—to accelerate its push into generative AI, according to a report by The Information that was later noted by Reuters. The talks are said to be preliminary and have not advanced to formal negotiations with either target. Services chief Eddy Cue is described as the leading proponent of a deal, while software head Craig Federighi prefers building the technology in-house, underscoring a strategic split inside the company. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, who last month said Apple is open to “larger AI-related acquisitions,” has typically limited takeovers to smaller, tuck-in transactions. An acquisition of either firm would mark Apple’s biggest purchase ever: Mistral was valued at more than $6 billion after its last funding round and is reportedly seeking new capital at about $10 billion, while Perplexity’s valuation is in the $14-18 billion range. Perplexity, which counts Nvidia and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos among its backers, said it is unaware of any merger conversations beyond its own acquisitions; Apple and Mistral declined to comment to Reuters. Apple is under increasing pressure to match rivals’ AI offerings as Alphabet embeds Gemini across Android and Samsung promotes Galaxy AI features. Alongside the internal debate over acquisitions, Apple has been exploring licensing Google’s Gemini models for a future version of Siri and continues to route some queries to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.