Arenes to anilines and aryl ethers by sequential iridium-catalyzed borylation and copper-catalyzed coupling.

[reaction: see text] N-Alkyl- and N-arylanilines were synthesized from arenes by a two-step sequence of iridium-catalyzed borylation and copper-catalyzed coupling with amines. Diaryl ethers were obtained by a related sequence of arene borylation, followed by coupling with phenols. In particular, 3,5-disubstituted arylamines and aryl ethers were prepared by initiating this sequence with meta-substituted arenes.