AI search start-up Perplexity has stunned the tech industry with an unsolicited $34.5 billion all-cash bid for Google’s Chrome browser, seeking to acquire its more than three billion users and secure a dominant foothold in the race for AI-powered search.
Led by CEO Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity’s offer far exceeds its own $14 billion valuation and echoes its January proposal to merge with TikTok US—a bid aimed at resolving US national security concerns over the video app’s Chinese ownership.
Perplexity confirmed the proposal on Tuesday but did not reveal how it plans to fund the purchase. The three-year-old company, backed by investors such as Nvidia and SoftBank, has raised about $1 billion to date. It said multiple unnamed funds have committed to financing the deal in full.
Google has not put Chrome up for sale and declined to comment on the offer. The bid comes as Google appeals a U.S. court ruling that found it held an unlawful monopoly in online search. The Justice Department has proposed forcing Google to divest Chrome as part of potential remedies, but legal experts say such an outcome could take years to play out through appeals.
Herbert Hovenkamp, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, noted that “forced divestitures” face scepticism from higher courts, making a near-term sale unlikely.
For Perplexity, acquiring Chrome would be transformative. The company already operates Comet, an AI-enabled browser capable of performing tasks for users, but Chrome’s massive reach could put it in direct competition with giants like OpenAI, which is building its own AI browser.
Perplexity’s bid pledges to:
- Keep Chrome’s underlying open-source Chromium code freely available
- Invest $3 billion in Chrome development over two years
- Retain Google Search as Chrome’s default engine
- Avoid equity components in the acquisition
The company says these terms are designed to maintain user choice and avoid antitrust pushback.
Industry watchers doubt Google would agree to part with Chrome, which is central to its AI-driven search features, including the recently launched “Overviews”—AI”-generated search summaries aimed at defending its market share.
Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of rival DuckDuckGo, has estimated Chrome’s value at $50 billion or more if a forced sale ever occurred, suggesting Perplexity’s offer may be well below what regulators or Google would accept.
A ruling on remedies in the Google search antitrust case from Judge Amit Mehta is expected later this month, but any order to sell Chrome could be delayed by a lengthy appeals process.
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