Apple will need to make the biggest acquisition in its history to put an end to its artificial intelligence debacle. Also: Meta rolls out new Oakley smart glasses; Honor prepares a new ultrathin foldable phone; and Apple’s annual back-to-school deal gets underway. Among the giants of Silicon Valley, Apple Inc. has long had an unusual acquisition strategy. The company’s biggest-ever purchase was Beats in 2014 — for $3 billion — and Apple has only made three transactions totaling $1 billion or more in its entire history. Rather than acquiring large, transformative businesses, Apple tends to target small companies with focused teams — typically to accelerate an internal project or jump-start a new initiative. Compare that with Facebook’s $19 billion purchase of WhatsApp, or Google’s $12.5 billion deal for Motorola Mobility. Just a couple years ago, Microsoft Corp. plunked down $69 billion for Activision Blizzard. When Apple has attempted billion-dollar deals, they haven’t gone smoothly. Developing the next generation of products — from glasses to robotics to new wearable devices — will hinge on AI. The technology will be as foundational to those products as the multitouch interface was to the iPhone (and that, notably, came via Apple’s 2005 acquisition of FingerWorks).

Full commentary : A look at Apple’s conservative M&A strategy, which may need to change to catch up in AI by acquiring Perplexity AI, Cohere, Sierra AI, Databricks, or Mistral AI.