Quick overview

---

Perplexity, an artificial intelligence startup,  offered $34.5 billion to buy Google’s Chrome browser. The offer from Perplexity is much higher than its own estimated $18 billion valuation. The company told the Wall Street Journal that several investors, including major venture capital funds, have committed to fund the deal entirely.

Recent analyses estimate Chrome’s enterprise value between $20 billion and $50 billion. In the U.S., federal judge Amit Mehta is currently considering whether to order Google to sell its Chrome browser in an effort to reduce its dominance in web search.

Last year, the court declared that Google was unlawfully controlling the search market, and this month, a ruling is expected on measures to restore competition.

Perplexity’s proposal might be a way to signal to the judge that, if a forced sale occurs, there is already a buyer. Perplexity states in a letter to Sundar Pichai, Google’s parent company’s CEO, that Google has shown no interest in selling Chrome. The offer aims “to satisfy an antitrust remedy in the highest public interest by placing Chrome with a capable and independent operator.”

During his testimony this year, Sundar Pichai told the judge that forcing Google to sell the browser or share its data with rivals would harm Google’s operations, discourage new technology investments, and potentially pose security risks.

Chrome currently holds over 60 percent of the global browser market, with about 32.5 billion users worldwide. Additionally, some of its users include Perplexity, a San Francisco-based company founded in 2022, which recently released its own web browser named Comet..