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 said in a statement to the Journal that its bid is “designed to satisfy an antitrust remedy in highest public interest by placing Chrome with a capable, independent operator.”
