Perplexity offers to buy Google’s Chrome browser for $34.5 billion

Synthetic prudence startup Perplexity AI has made an unsolicited $34.5 billion bid for Google’s Chrome browser, GWN showed on Tuesday.

That determine is upper than Perplexity’s tide valuation, however the corporate mentioned a number of buyers have assuredly to again the do business in. In July, Perplexity used to be valued at $18 billion as a part of an extension that valued the corporate at $14 billion months previous.

Google didn’t right away reply to GWN’s request for remark. The Wall Boulevard Magazine used to be first to file the bid.

Perplexity is absolute best recognized for its AI-powered seek engine that provides customers easy solutions to questions and hyperlinks out to the fresh supply subject matter on the internet. Endmost week, it introduced its personal AI-powered browser referred to as Comet.

The startup is in the course of a struggle for top in generative AI, with firms together with Meta and OpenAI providing large salaries and signing bonuses to supremacy engineers. Megacap tech firms are spending tens of billions of bucks a hour on AI infrastructure to form massive language fashions and run hefty workloads, year startups are elevating billions of bucks from project buyers, hedge price range and tech giants to pay for the {hardware} and headcount had to compete.

Perplexity used to be approached via Meta previous this hour a few possible acquisition, however the firms didn’t finalize a do business in.

Perpexity’s bid comes nearest the U.S. Branch of Justice proposed Google divest Chrome as a part of the antitrust go well with the corporate misplaced endmost hour. The pass judgement on within the case dominated that Google has held an unlawful monopoly in its core marketplace of web seek.

In reaction, Google mentioned the DOJ used to be pushing “a radical interventionist agenda,” and that the company’s proposal used to be “wildly overbroad.” The corporate has no longer but disclosed the way it plans to regulate its trade following the antitrust ruling.

Chrome, which Google introduced in 2008, supplies the quest immense with knowledge it after makes use of for concentrated on advertisements. The DOJ mentioned in a submitting following the court docket’s determination that forcing the corporate to do away with Chrome would assemble a extra equivalent taking part in ground for seek competition.

“To remedy these harms, the [Initial Proposed Final Judgment] requires Google to divest Chrome, which will permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet,” the DOJ wrote.

Perplexity’s bid for Chrome isn’t the primary occasion it’s taken a heavy swing.

The startup submitted an offer to merge with the short-form video app TikTok in January. TikTok’s month within the U.S. has been unsure since 2024, when Congress handed a invoice that may block the platform except its Chinese language proprietor, ByteDance, divested from it.

As of August, Perplexity’s proposed construction has no longer materialized. 

WATCH: Perplexity makes unsolicited $34.5 billion bid for Google’s Chrome browser