Apple has quietly agreed to hire employees and license intellectual property from Animato, a small California-based company that developed software to create virtual avatars used in video chats and tutoring, according to a European Commission filing spotted by Woozad. The acquisition was filed under the EU Digital Markets Act in January 2026 and appears to be what is known as a “structured acquisition”. In other words, Apple is able to make job 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 offers of employment and hire certain employees of Animato, Inc. (“Animato”), to receive a non-exclusive license to Animato’s intellectual property rights and to acquire Animato’s patent applications. Animato develops and distributes software for creating virtual avatars for video chats and tutoring. Animato was founded in October 2022 by Francesco Rossi, who 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 then branched into language learning by offering avatar tutors to practice English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean via video chats. Animato also released a macOS virtual camera app called Animato Studio that lets users appear as fantasy characters 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. This is Apple’s second acquisition of a digital avatar company in just over a year. In January 2025, Apple acquired the technology, intellectual property and physical assets of TrueMeeting, a company specializing in the development of digital avatar technology for meetings. Apple already offers avatar-like 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. Post navigation Apple purchased color grading tool Color.io in January
