Global Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity has proposed a bold move to acquire Google Chrome Browser.
Perplexity reportedly offered Google $34.5 billion for the rights to the world’s most popular web browser, a sum which is even higher than Perplexity’s own valuation.
This development comes amidst the successful anti-trust case against the Alphabet-owned company for benefiting from a search monopoly and the ongoing pressure to sell.
The AI company was last valued at $18 billion, following the recent funding round in July where it raised a fresh capital of $100 million.
Last week, the Nvidia-backed company launched ‘Comet’, a new web browser featuring AI-powered search tools, as part of its effort to take on the dominance of Alphabet’s Google Chrome.
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According to latest reports, Perplexity reportedly said that its offer includes a commitment to keep Chrome’s core engine, which is Chromium, open source and a promise of continued investment of about $3 billion.
Additionally, the AI startup also promised not to change user defaults even if its bid is successful. As per the report, Google will remain as the default search engine on Chrome instead of making Perplexity’s AI-powered search the default option.
However, Google is yet to confirm the selling. The Alphabet-owned company has been under scrutiny following a successful ruling in favour of the US Department of Justice in an antitrust case which said that Google had struck anti-competitive deals with companies such as Apple to position its search engine ahead of others.
