AI Startup, Perplexity Wants to Buy Chrome Browser for $34.5B

AI startup Perplexity has made an unsolicited proposal to purchase Google’s Chrome browser for $34.5 billion in cash, according to a company spokesperson. The bid comes after growing regulatory pressure on Google, with a federal judge previously ruling that the company holds an illegal monopoly in internet search. The U.S. government may require Google to sell Chrome and share its search data with competitors.

Perplexity, valued at $18 billion after a funding round earlier this year, says multiple large investment funds have agreed to fully finance the purchase. The company has also been working on its own, newly released but still only available via invites, AI-powered browser, Comet, which has integrated AI agent capabilities.

The proposal includes a pledge to invest $3 billion over the next two years to improve Chrome and its open-source base, Chromium. Perplexity says

• It would extend job offers to a large portion ...