Apple nears deal to acquire talent and technology from computer vision startup Prompt AI (www.cnbc.com)

Apple is in late-stage talks to acquihire Prompt AI, a 11-person Berkeley-founded computer vision startup whose co‑founders include AI researchers Tete Xiao (UC Berkeley PhD) and Trevor Darrell (BAIR founder). The deal would bring Prompt’s talent and technology into Apple — likely into HomeKit — while Prompt retires its flagship Seemour app (used to add person/pet/object detection, text‑based descriptions and alerting for home cameras) and deletes user data. Prompt raised a $5M seed in 2023; investors will receive some payout but “won’t be made whole.” Executives told employees those who don’t join Apple will get reduced pay and were encouraged to apply for Apple roles; other suitors such as xAI and Neuralink had also approached the company. For the AI/ML community this is notable both technically and strategically. Technically, Prompt’s on‑device/edge-capable vision stack and natural‑language alerting could accelerate Apple’s computer vision features across HomeKit and devices where privacy-sensitive, local inference matters. Strategically, the move exemplifies Apple’s quiet acquihire playbook to bolt expert teams into product lines rather than pursue large marquee buys — a pattern with implications for talent flows, startup exit expectations, and competitive dynamics among AI-focused hardware and consumer‑privacy centric applications.