Perplexity AI makes wild $34.5B all-cash offer for Google Chrome browser

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Artificial intelligence firm Perplexity on Tuesday made an unsolicited $34.5 billion offer to buy Google’s Chrome web browser – as the Big Tech giant faces the prospect of being broken up over its illegal monopoly over online search.

The massive offer dwarfs the startup’s own current valuation, estimated to be $18 billion.

Perplexity, run by Aravind Srinivas, said it is partnering with multiple investors, including unnamed venture capital firms, to bankroll the proposed deal, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The firm would invest $3 billion into Chrome over two years and maintain open-source access for its underlying code, Chromium, according to details of the proposal obtained by the Journal. It would also continue placing Google as the default search engine in Chrome.

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Perplexity — which has its own AI-powered web browser, Comet — told Google that its offer was “designed to satisfy an antitrust remedy in highest public interest by placing Chrome with a capable, independent operator,” according to the Journal.

Perplexity AI makes wild $34.5B all-cash offer for Google Chrome browser

Perplexity is no stranger to headline-grabbing offers — it made a similar one for TikTok US in January, offering to merge with the popular short-video app.

nypost.com

 

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Perplexity’s $34.5 billion gambit for Google’s Chrome could change the AI wars overnight​

Perplexity, an emerging force in artificial intelligence, has offered a staggering $34.5 billion for Google’s Chrome browser, according to the Wall Street Journal. The unsolicited bid, which Perplexity confirmed to the newspaper, is far in excess of Perplexity’s own $18 billion valuation and comes at a pivotal moment for both companies: Perplexity recently unveiled its own AI-native search browser, called Comet, last month, an explicit move to take on Google Chrome. Meanwhile, Google’s own fate is up in the air as a federal judge weighs what remedies should follow from the 2024 ruling that Google had illegally monopolized the search market.

Perplexity's $34.5 billion gambit for Google's Chrome could change the AI wars overnight

The Department of Justice wants Google to be forced to sell Chrome. One industry rival valued it at upwards of $50 billion.

fortune.com