Apple Acquires TrueMeeting and WhyLabs to Enhance AI Capabilities for Vision Pro and Apple Intelligence

Apple acquires more firms to improve Apple Intelligence and Apple Vision Pro

Two more companies have been quietly acquired by Apple, giving it technology and staff that appear to be working on Apple Vision Pro and Apple Intelligence. While Apple has always bought firms, typically making at least several Acquisitions every year, most recently it appears to have been buying AI firms in particular. Now, as first spotted by MacGeneration, it's been revealed that Apple has bought at least two more such companies. One of them is TrueMeeting, which lets users scan their faces with their iPhones and produce an AI avatar image. The company's official site has been removed, but TrueMeeting claimed to make a "hyper-realistic digital twin" of the user. The firm's CommonGround Human AI Technology then integrated with other apps ranging from games to communications, such as video conferencing. While neither Apple nor TrueMeeting have commented publicly, it seems that Apple acquired it to further develop the Apple Vision Pro's Personas feature. TrueMeeting is most likely to have been officially acquired during late 2024 -- and by June 2025, visionOS 26 was showing a much more natural Persona in the Apple Vision Pro headset. Apple's Personas feature was already being improved, so it can't be proved that TrueMeeting has had an influence yet, but it appears so. Around the same time, Apple also bought WhyLabs, which is concerned with monitoring AI large language models and, ultimately, preventing hallucinations. It does that through tracking what the company describes on its still active official site as drift and performance degradations. Beyond that, it aims to offer blocking of security issues such as malicious misuse of generative AI such as Apple Intelligence. In a promo video, it gives the example of a customer service chatbot disclosing a user's delivery address, for instance, and how with WhyLabs that data would be redacted. Apple continually buys companies in order to acquire their technology or sometimes just their staff. Apple never discloses any acquisition, though, unless it's in some way advantageous to do so -- or if it's required to under regulations covering, for instance, the size of the deal. So in 2021, Apple was upfront about buying the Primephonic streaming service, because it wanted to promote how it would be launching Apple Music Classical. Since 2023 when the EU's Digital Markets Act was in progress, however, it's become more likely that Apple will be required to disclose acquisitions. Since Apple, along with Google, Amazon and others, have been designated Gatekeepers by the EU, they are each now obliged to detail acquisitions under certain circumstances. Specifically, they must inform the European Commission of any acquisition "where the merging entities or the target of the concentration provide core platform services or any other services in the digital sector or enable the collection of data." The EU publishes a list of such acquisitions, though the detail is limited and the dates given are when these deals are published, not when they actually happen. Plus the EU says its list is updated "not earlier than four months after receipt of the information." Consequently, the EU lists Apple's acquisition of Pixelmator as being on February 11, 2025, when the deal was actually first revealed in November 2024. So while the EU lists January 24, 2025, as the date for both TrueMeeting and WhyLabs, they were probably acquired in Q4 2024.

Apple Silently Acquires Two AI Startups To Enhance Vision Pro Realism And Strengthen Apple Intelligence With Smarter, Safer, And More Privacy-Focused Technology

Apple seems to be focused on boosting not only the work it has been doing on the Vision Pro headset but also in escalating its AI ambitions further by advancing its Apple Intelligence initiatives. To help with driving its efforts it seems to be resorting to a a technique of acquiring smaller firms time after time that would be solely focused on excelling in the technology. It seems to not be slowing down any time soon as it has recently acquired two more companies to help strengthen not only its talent pool but also with growing its innovation through the new technology stacks added up. MacGeneration was the one to uncover about Apple recently taking over two additional companies to continue with its low-profile strategy of growing Apple Intelligence by slowly building its talent and technology. One of the acquired companies is TrueMeeting, a startup with expertise in AI avatars and facial scanning. All the users need is an iPhone to scan their faces and then could see a hyper realistic version of themselves being created. While the official website has been taken down, but the technology company has seems to align with Apple's ambitions regarding its Vision Pro and the attempts at an immersive experience. TrueMeeting's main expertise lies in the CommonGround Human AI that is meant to make virtual interactions feel more natural and human and can be integrated seamlessly with a wide range of applications. Although there has been no official comment on the acquisition by either of the parties but it looks like Apple has went ahead with it to further its development of Personas in the Apple Vision Pro headset, which are basically the lifelike digital avatars and refine its technology to improve on the spatial computing experience. Apple additionally has also acquired WhyLabs, a firm focused on improving the reliability of these large language models (LLMs). It excels in dealings with issues such as bugs and AI hallucinations by helping developers with maintaining consistency and accuracy in the AI systems. Apple by taking over this company wants to not only advance further its Apple Intelligence but also ensure the tools are reliable and safe, which are the core values of the company and something direly needed to help integrate the models across varied platforms and ensure a consistent experience. WhyLabs is not only focused on monitoring the performance of these models and ensuring reliability but also has expertise in providing safeguards for these systems to help combat misuse owing to security vulnerabilities. It is able to block any harmful output in these AI models and again aligns completely with Apple's stance on privacy and user trust. This acquisition is especially vital with the growing expansion of Apple Intelligence capabilities across the ecosystem. Apple seems to be doubling its efforts on the AI front and ensuring a more immersive experience without compromising on the the technology remaining safe and the systems acting responsibly.