Tech giant Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is understood to be strengthening its HomeKit ambitions by acquiring the “talent and technology” of Prompt AI, a computer vision company started in 2023.
The acquisition underpins Apple’s continued strategy of quietly buying smaller artificial intelligence (AI) startups to enhance specific product capabilities, in this case, computer vision for smart home devices.
The acquisition also aligns with Apple’s growing ambitions in home automation, especially through its HomeKit platform.
Apple is understood to be developing its first proprietary home security camera, which is expected to rival Amazon’s Ring lineup.
Equipped with facial recognition and infrared sensors, the camera aims to identify individuals and detect activity with enhanced privacy controls.
What has attracted Apple to Prompt AI is the technology used in its Seemour app, which includes algorithms that not only recognise objects and faces but can also generate textual summaries of recorded activity and respond to user queries.
These capabilities could soon find their way into Apple’s smart displays and hubs.
Prompt AI plans to shut down the Seemour app and delete user data to maintain privacy compliance before the acquisition is complete.
Founded by AI researchers Tete Xiao and Trevor Darrell, both linked to UC Berkeley, Prompt AI raised US$5 million in seed funding from AIX and Abstract Ventures to develop software that enables home security cameras to detect people, pets, and unusual motion events in real time.
While other tech companies, including xAI and Neuralink, reportedly expressed interest in acquiring Prompt AI’s assets, Apple’s offer, which focuses on integrating the team and tech into its ecosystem, appears to have attracted the Prompt leadership team the most.
Leadership at Prompt told employees that those who don’t end up joining Apple will be paid a reduced salary and encouraged to apply for open roles at the company.
To help them sidestep regulatory concerns, Silicon Valley’s tech giants have been snapping up top AI talent through acquihires to bolster their AI research and development.
Apple’s deal for Prompt is much smaller than recent high-profile transactions such as Meta’s US$14.3 billion investment in Scale AI that brought with it the company’s founder and other execs, and Google’s US$2.4 billion deal for Windsurf’s CEO and leaders that included licensing fees.
Having historically avoided making large acquisitions, Apple prefers to quietly acquire smaller teams and use their talent and technology to develop features for its product lines.
However, some analysts claim Apple’s relatively slow progress in AI is due to its unwillingness to make big purchases.
While Apple Intelligence, the iPhone maker’s first major push into generative AI, has underwhelmed critics and faced delays, the company achieved technical success with computer vision, especially in its mixed reality headset, Vision Pro.
Industry observers expect Apple to unveil new computer vision APIs at upcoming developer events, potentially expanding what third-party developers can do with HomeKit Secure Video.
With Prompt AI’s expertise, Apple could allow developers to build automation features triggered by visual events, like turning on outdoor lighting when a delivery arrives or adjusting thermostats when a room becomes occupied.
These enhancements would not only deepen Apple’s smart home ecosystem but also reduce reliance on cloud-based processing, keeping user data private while improving responsiveness.
Apple’s stock is down 2% this year, badly trailing major indexes and the worst performance among the tech mega caps.
