Perplexity offers $34.5 billion to buy Chrome, shaking up the browser world

Perplexity, a young artificial intelligence company, has made a surprising offer to buy Google's Chrome web browser for $34.5 billion, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal. This move comes as Google faces legal pressure from the US government about its control over internet searches. The offer is much bigger than Perplexity's own worth, which experts think is around $18 billion. The company says several big investors have promised to help pay for this huge deal if it goes through.

Chrome is the most popular web browser in the world, used by more than 3.5 billion people and holding over 60% of all browser users. A US judge named Amit Mehta is deciding whether Google should be forced to sell Chrome to make internet searching fairer for everyone. The Wall Street Journal notes that Perplexity's bid might be trying to show the judge that someone is ready to buy Chrome if the court orders Google to sell it. Google has not said anything about wanting to sell Chrome and plans to fight any court order to do so.

The three-year-old startup has been making bold moves lately, as Reuters explains, including a previous attempt to buy TikTok's American operations earlier this year. Perplexity's boss, Aravind Srinivas, seems comfortable making big headline-grabbing offers that get attention in the tech world. The company has raised about $1 billion from famous investors, including Nvidia and Japan's SoftBank, making it one of the well-funded AI companies. Other big names like OpenAI, Yahoo, and Apollo Global Management have also shown interest in Chrome, showing how valuable this browser could be.

As more people start using AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Perplexity instead of traditional search, web browsers are becoming more important than ever. Reuters reports that owning Chrome would give Perplexity access to billions of users and the data they create, which is extremely valuable for training AI systems. Perplexity already has its own AI browser called Comet, but buying Chrome would instantly make it a major player against bigger competitors like OpenAI, which is also working on its own browser.

Read more on Chicago Star:

• Remembering Jim Lovell: The man who led Apollo 13 back to Earth
• The importance of honoring Labor Day 2025—plus which stores are closed
• Believe the hive hype at O'Hare airport
• Chicago Triathlon gets ready for “lift off”

Technology experts are not convinced this offer is serious, with the BBC sharing insights from industry professionals who call it more of a publicity stunt than a real business deal. Heath Ahrens, who invests in tech companies, believes the $34.5 billion offer is nowhere near Chrome's actual value because of all the user data and market reach it provides. He suggests that someone like Elon Musk or Sam Altman would need to offer three times as much to make a realistic bid.

Another expert, Tomasz Tunguz from Theory Ventures, agrees that Chrome is probably worth much more than what Perplexity is offering, possibly ten times more valuable. The BBC notes that it is not even clear whether Google wants to sell Chrome at all, since the company has not announced any plans to get rid of its popular browser. Perplexity promises that if the deal happens, they will keep Google as the main search engine in Chrome and continue supporting the open-source Chromium project that many browsers use. However, most experts think Google will fight hard in court to keep Chrome because it is so important for the company's future AI plans and business success.