That Apple-Meta AI deal isn’t happening anytime soon

• Did Apple and Meta discuss an AI deal? Or is there no AI deal happening between Apple and Meta?
• Yes! Probably. Maybe.
• You can get at the real answer by parsing two contradictory reports from The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.

News: Apple has talked to Meta, its fierce rival, about an AI deal.

Also news: Apple is not talking to Meta about an AI deal, because Meta is a fierce rival.

Which one of these stories is true? Technically, it’s possible for both of them to be correct.

My hunch, though, is that the second one is truthier: Apple and Meta aren’t doing anything together on AI — or anything else — anytime soon.

Some background: On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal published a report that said Meta and Apple had “held discussions” about connecting Apple’s devices to Meta’s AI engine, similar to a deal it has already struck with OpenAI.

The key here is the tense: The Journal said the two companies had talked, which is pretty noteworthy, given that they’ve been fighting for years. But the paper didn’t give any sense of whether those talks were ongoing or headed anywhere.

Then on Monday, Bloomberg reported its own version of the story: Yes, the two companies had talked — but that was months ago, and nothing’s happening or going to happen.

Not only that, but people at Tim Cook’s company wanted to be clear about their stance re: Mark Zuckerberg’s operation, telling Bloomberg (anonymously) that Apple wouldn’t work with Meta “in part because it doesn’t see that company’s privacy practices as stringent enough.” Zing!

It’s not impossible to walk back that messaging. Apple’s clear strategy here is to act as a gatekeeper between its users and various AI companies. And it’s possible that at some point Meta will be one of those companies, in the same way that Apple customers use iPhones to access Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Apple reps haven’t responded to a request for comment, and Meta declined to comment. But Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist, reposted the Bloomberg story to Threads on Tuesday and quipped, “Their loss.”

So that’s the what-does-it-all-mean angle satisfied: There’s probably not a lot there.

But if you’re a person who gets a kick out of feuds (raises hand), then this story has some bonus pettiness: Not only do we get to watch Apple people (anonymously) dump on Meta people, we get to watch the normally civil tech press dump on each other’s reporting. Fun!