Perplexity AI has made an unsolicited $34.5 billion cash offer to buy Google’s Chrome browser, in a move tied to an ongoing U.S. antitrust case against Google.
The AI company, currently valued at around $18 billion, is pitching itself as a potential buyer if regulators require Google to sell Chrome, according to The Wall Street Journal. The browser holds more than 60% of the global market and has roughly 3.5 billion users worldwide.
In its proposal, Perplexity said it would keep Chrome’s underlying Chromium project open-source, retain Google as the default search engine while allowing user choice, and invest heavily in further development.
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GoogleGoogle isn’t interested yet
The offer comes as U.S. courts weigh remedies in the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Google, which could include forcing the sale of Chrome. Google has not indicated any interest in selling, and analysts view the deal as unlikely to go through.
Perplexity’s bid is more than double its own valuation, positioning the company as an aggressive contender in the event of a court-ordered divestiture.
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This comes just weeks after the AI company launched Comet back in July, which is its own AI-powered web browser made to compete with the likes of Chrome, Edge, and Firefox.
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