She Could Be the Future of AI at Apple – and Her Company Should Be Its Next Acquisition

Apple stands at a significant crossroads in the realm of artificial intelligence, with a potential multibillion-dollar acquisition on the horizon. The founder of a promising startup could pave the way for an enhanced Siri and open new revenue opportunities for Apple, making her a strong candidate for future CEO.

The company’s stance in the AI arena remains somewhat unclear. Apple adopts a hybrid approach, acting as a platform for frontier AI products while simultaneously crafting its own AI consumer features within the Apple Intelligence suite.

Although Apple may collect fees from AI providers wishing to operate on the iPhone, its current strategy does not encompass the development of AI technology as a service for enterprises, educational institutions, or direct consumer sales.

Apple thrives when it focuses on its core competencies. Yet, there’s no reason this pivotal player in computing couldn’t successfully deliver AI solutions that cater to privacy-conscious businesses and educational institutions.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is not for sale. However, the tumultuous early leadership has created an environment where acquiring top talent from OpenAI does not necessitate a buyout.

A significant figure associated with OpenAI, and the focus of this discussion, is Mira Murati. Her startup, Thinking Machines Lab, boasts a team of experts from premier AI companies and is dedicated to creating “multimodal AI models and products with practical applications.”

As I mentioned in my Neural column on February 27, 2025:

While OpenAI is advancing rapidly, former key personnel who departed the company are establishing new startups, attracting investment and developing innovative AI tools.

Mira Murati, the former Chief Technology Officer at OpenAI, recently launched her AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab. She has recruited over 30 experts from OpenAI, Meta, and Google DeepMind.

Co-founder Lilian Weng, a former Vice President of AI Safety and Robotics at OpenAI, and John Schulman, another OpenAI co-founder who transitioned from Anthropic, are part of this impressive team.

Thinking Machines Lab’s mission centers around creating multimodal AI models and practical applications for various industries.

Here’s a glimpse of Thinking Machines Lab’s aspirations:

Despite significant advancements in AI capabilities, key gaps continue to exist. The understanding of cutting-edge AI systems within the scientific community lags behind their rapid evolution. Knowledge regarding how these systems are trained is often confined to top research institutions, which restricts public discussions on AI and limits effective usage. Moreover, even with their immense potential, current systems remain challenging for individuals to tailor according to their specific needs and values. To address these challenges, we are establishing Thinking Machines Lab to promote broader understanding, customization, and overall capability of AI systems. […]

We emphasize human-AI collaboration, aiming to develop multimodal systems that effectively partner with users rather than solely autonomous systems.

Our goal is to create AI systems that are more flexible, adaptable, and personalized. We recognize tremendous potential for AI to contribute across various fields of work. While existing systems excel in programming and mathematics, we are focusing on AI that can adapt to diverse areas of human expertise and encourage a wider range of applications.

The startup is reportedly looking to raise $1 billion at a valuation of $9 billion, as noted by Business Insider.

The actual financial commitment for Apple to acquire Thinking Machines Lab and retain its talent could exceed $20 billion.

What might Apple gain from what would be its largest acquisition to date?

• Access to unique AI research and world-class experts in modern AI from Mira Murati and her team, not limited to just machine learning.
• Securing Murati and her team would prevent competitors like Google, Meta, and Samsung from acquiring their expertise.
• If AI becomes essential to the future of computing, Murati could lead Apple in transforming it into a truly AI-first organization.

AI represents a potential existential challenge for Apple. While Apple currently provides an operating system that supports AI applications, AI could eventually evolve to serve as the operating system itself. A standard graphical user interface might become as rudimentary as the command line, compared to a computing experience intricately designed around AI.

We catch a glimpse of this through Apple Intelligence, Siri, and ChatGPT. Although ChatGPT integrates with Siri via Apple Intelligence, the superior experience is undeniably through the standalone ChatGPT app—no Siri or Apple Intelligence involvement necessary. Perhaps the most effective AI will run on the iPhone, but an even better experience could occur within that AI company’s product ecosystem.

Since acquiring my white iPhone 4 in spring 2011, I’ve never considered switching to Android. However, a product ecosystem (phone, watch, earbuds) centered on modern AI could render the iPhone obsolete by comparison. Luckily for Apple, such a pioneering AI platform hasn’t emerged yet, but the opportunity is ripe for its grasp.

Now, looking back at Mira Murati (36), does Apple have anyone with her level of expertise in contemporary AI? Not just machine learning— the expertise that John Giannandrea was brought in to handle. I’m talking about someone deeply entrenched in the frontlines of AI, particularly in generative AI and large language models. Does Apple have a comparable team of former elite leaders from OpenAI and Anthropic akin to the team she’s assembled at Thinking Machines Lab?

Many are excited to witness the outcomes of Apple’s recent reorganization efforts regarding Siri. Mike Rockwell has garnered respect for solving complex challenges, including transitioning Apple Vision Pro and visionOS from research to consumer use. One shouldn’t blame him for the $3,500 price tag—the product seems to deliver on its promises.

Conversely, Siri has consistently failed to meet expectations, and Rockwell is now tasked with making sure the features are operational as advertised.

The challenge lies in the fact that Apple did not market Apple Intelligence as the definitive solution for remedying Siri’s inconsistencies, even if it was perceived that way initially. Instead, Apple promised Siri would gain additional capabilities, including on-screen awareness, inter-app actions, and personalized responses based on user data from Messages and Mail.

Having been labeled a Siri critic, Rockwell may indeed prioritize strengthening Siri’s core functionality, making it more reliable and error-resistant. Allow him to excel in his area of expertise and deliver a robust iteration of Siri.

However, expecting Rockwell to enhance AI itself may be an unfair expectation. This is where involving Mira Murati and her team could provide Apple the essential edge to remain relevant—essentially aligning with the future trajectory of technology.

Currently, Apple’s AI endeavors don’t match the current competition with companies like Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon. Moreover, Apple is not in the same league as OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, and Perplexity.

If Apple chose to adopt a completely AI-agnostic stance and welcome third-party AI developers, that would be one thing. However, the company exhibits limited integration with ChatGPT that falls under Murati’s purview at OpenAI, while publicly inviting Google to incorporate Gemini with Siri.

As of now, Google has yet to share Gemini with Siri, and it’s unclear why they would. Even the ChatGPT integration seems to favor Apple more than OpenAI, which is not how partnerships are supposed to work. Apple is working on its own version of a chatbot Siri, expected to launch somewhere between next year and a century from now. This scenario places the Claudes and Geminis of the world in a competitive position while Apple is still catching up and relegates Siri to a secondary role as a mere resource.

So what options does Apple have in light of this? Siri was initially a startup. Apple Music began as a startup. iTunes was also a startup, as was OS X. Face ID, Touch ID, and Apple silicon were startups. Even Apple’s new C1 cellular modem emerged from years of development within a startup environment. Pixelmator, Shazam, Dark Sky, Beddit? Also startups.

While Apple has a handful of AI startups under its wing, none have made a significant impact yet. Thinking Machines Lab hasn’t achieved that status either, but its talent pool holds great promise. Perhaps the time is ripe for Apple to acquire a startup that could lay the groundwork for its next monumental venture into the future.

Let Rockwell implement all the necessary renovations to enable Siri to meet the performance standards that Apple aims for. Allow Murati to concentrate on innovation rather than legacy systems. Empower her to transform Apple into a frontrunner in AI—one that doesn’t merely use AI companies but inspires others to depend on its AI capabilities. Provide Murati’s team the chance to innovate and compete—begin this competition now. See who retains the iPhone as we currently know it, and who gets the iPod-based iPhone that remained in the labs.

If Murati proves essential for enhancing Siri as well, I’m all for rebranding Siri to Mira. TL;DR: wake me up when Apple acquires Thinking Machines Lab and hires Mira Murati.

I’m hopeful that we are entering the Planet of the Apps era of Apple Intelligence, while the Severance era of AI at Apple awaits just around the corner.