Apple has quietly agreed to hire employees and license intellectual property of Animato, a small California-based company that has developed software for creating virtual avatars used in video chats and tutoring, according to a European Commission filing spotted by MacRumors.


The acquisition was filed under the EU's Digital Markets Act in January 2026, and appears to be what's known as a "structured acqui-hire." In other words, Apple is able to make employment offers to certain Animato employees and receive a non-exclusive license to the company's intellectual property, as well as acquire its patent applications.

Apple Inc. ("Apple") will have the right to make employment offers to and hire certain employees of Animato, Inc. ("Animato"), receive a non-exclusive license to Animato's intellectual property rights, and acquire Animato's patent applications. Animato develops and distributes software that creates virtual avatars for video chats and tutoring.

Animato was founded in October 2022 by Francesco Rossi, who previously spent seven years at Apple before leaving to start the company.

Animato is best known for a free app called "Call Annie," which launched in April 2023, and gave ChatGPT a real-time animated avatar face, allowing users to have video-style conversations with the AI chatbot.

The app later moved into language learning by offering avatar tutors for practicing English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean through video conversations.

Animato also came out with a macOS virtual camera app called Animato Studio that let users make themselves appear as fantasy figures and anime avatars during video calls and live streams.

Both App Store listings have since been removed following the acquisition, and the Call Annie website says the app has been discontinued.

It's Apple's second acquisition of a digital avatar company in just over a year. In January 2025, Apple acquired technology, IP, and physical assets from TrueMeeting, a company specializing in the development of digital avatar technology for meetings.

Apple already offers avatar-style technology with Memoji on iPhone and its Personas feature on Apple Vision Pro, the latter of which generates a realistic digital representation of the user for FaceTime calls.
This article, "Apple Taps Virtual Avatar Firm Animato's Expertise and Intellectual Property" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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In October 2025, Apple notified the European Commission that it would be acquiring invrs.io LLC's sole employee, and certain assets from the company. Following a four-month waiting period, the European Commission published this information this week.


That sole employee appears to be Martin Schubert, according to his LinkedIn profile. Schubert founded invrs.io in 2023 to advance AI-guided design, initially focusing on optical and photonics technologies for AR/VR, data centers, and more.

"Invrs develops open-source frameworks for photonics research, providing standardized simulation challenges and a public leaderboard for benchmarking and comparing design results," reads a notice on the European Commission's website.

Schubert's systems could be useful for future Apple Vision Pro development, but it is unclear exactly what he was hired to work on at this point. He previously worked at Alphabet's X, on AI-powered photonic design, and at Meta.

More details about invrs.io are available on GitHub.

Last month, Apple announced that it acquired Q.ai, an Israeli startup working on AI technology for audio. That was reportedly Apple's second-biggest acquisition ever, with the deal valued at nearly $2 billion. Apple's largest acquisition was the headphone brand Beats, which it bought for $3 billion in 2014. Apple Music launched a year later, and it was built on the foundation of the former Beats Music streaming service.
This article, "EU Reveals Apple Made a Tiny Acquisition Last Year" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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