News broke this week that Perplexity AI is in talks to integrate its assistant directly into Samsung and Motorola phones.

What’s especially interesting here is how this upends the usual Android assistant narrative. Google has been baking Gemini into Android with increasing urgency, and now we have Android hardware makers cutting deals with a third-party assistant — one that’s not Google. That’s a big deal. It says something about how fast the AI landscape is shifting.

And then there’s Apple.

Just imagine a future where Samsung phones have Perplexity, Google phones have Gemini, and Apple…still has Siri.

Yikes.

Now, I get it. This is very on-brand for Apple. They like to own the whole stack, and they’re not the type to go shopping for outside solutions. And to be fair, there have been increasing signals that Apple is pouring serious resources into AI lately. Hopefully that’s not just for show.

Part of me can’t help but wonder if one of the smartest moves Apple could have made was to simply buy Perplexity. But that ship may have already sailed.

It’s not just about having an assistant; it’s about having one that people want to use. The AI space is sprinting, and it feels as if Apple is still stretching on the sidelines.