- Perplexity AI amaze the industry with an unsolicited cash offer of $ 34.5 billion for Google Chrome
- Chrome Browser remains a key element in Google AI tools and LLM development strategy in the long term
- The evaluation of the perplexity is less than half of the amount it has offered to acquire Chrome
Perplexity AI drew attention with an unsolicited cash supply of $ 34.5 billion to acquire the Google Chrome browser.
The proposal comes despite the fact that Chrome is not officially for sale, and its deep integration into the wider strategy of Google AI, not to mention its wider software platform.
Analysts consider the offer as an ambitious decision aimed at stimulating advertising, given the role of chrome in the management of research traffic, the management of AI tools and the collection of user data essential for Google’s long -term automatic learning and the development of Google language models (LLM).
Details of the offer and competitive implications
The proposed acquisition conditions would have committed to maintaining the chrome, the underlying, open source navigator code, with perplexity claiming that it would invest $ 3 billion over two years and maintain the current chrome default search engine.
The company claims that these steps would protect the choice of users while potentially going to regulatory concerns.
However, the offer is lower than the $ 50 billion assessment that certain industry figures, including the CEO of DuckduckGo, believe that Chrome could recover if the diversion was mandated.
The regulatory context plays an enormous role in this situation, as the United States Ministry of Justice continued a chrome sale in the remedies in a wider anti -rust case against Google, which was found to hold an illegal monopoly in research.
Federal judge Amit Mehta should soon make a decision on appeals, but the experts suggest that a sales order could face years of appeal.
Experts also claim that the higher courts, including the DC circuit and potentially the Supreme Court, tend to be skeptical of forced disinvestments.
Perplexity’s own financial situation raises questions, mainly because the company was founded only three years ago.
He collected about $ 1 billion from donors such as Nvidia and SoftBank and was last time at $ 14 billion.
He did not reveal exactly how he would finance the acquisition, but said that several nameless funds offered complete funding.
The magnitude of the offer, more than twice its evaluation, recalls the previous proposal of high -level but unable to merge with the American operations of Tiktok.
The offer also highlights the dynamics of change in the way people interact with the web.
Navigators, formerly considered a stable infrastructure, have found strategic importance because more and more users are turning to AI tools and chatbot interfaces for more information.
By acquiring the three billion chrome users, Perplexity could potentially speed up the adoption of its AI browser, Comet, which is currently limited to users on the waiting list and premium subscribers.
For the moment, it seems that the offer is mainly a stroke of advertising, and the probability that Google accepts the offer is very low, because Chrome remains full of the Google IA roadmap, including features such as “glimpses” which provide research summaries generated by AI.
If Perplexity’s offer is mainly a visibility strategy, it can succeed in drawing attention to the comet, but it will probably not scratch the domination of chrome.
Via PK Press Club
