- Perpleplexity AI surprised the industry with an cash offer of $ 34.5 billion not requested for Google Chrome
- Chrome Browser remains a key part of Google’s tools and LLM development strategy in the long term
- The valuation of perplexity is less than half of the amount offered to acquire chrome
PERPLEXITY AI has attracted attention with an unre requested cash offer of $ 34.5 billion to acquire the Google Chrome browser.
The proposal occurs despite the fact that Chrome is not officially for sale, and its deep integration into the broader Google strategy, not to mention its broader software platform.
Analysts see the offer as an ambitious movement aimed at promoting advertising, given the role of Chrome in the driving of the search traffic, the support of the AI tools and the collection of data from the essential users for the development of long -term automatic learning of Google and the development of large language models (LLM).
DETAIL DETAILS AND COMPETITIVE IMPLICATIONS
According to the reports, the proposed acquisition terms are committed to maintaining Chromium, the underlying browser code, open source, with perplexity saying that it would invest $ 3 billion for two years and maintain the current predetermined search engine of Chrome.
The company states that these steps would protect the user’s choice and relieve regulatory concerns.
However, the offer is below the valuation of $ 50 billion that some industry figures, including the CEO of Duckdugo, believe that Chrome could obtain if the divestment was ever ordered.
The regulatory context plays a very important role in this situation, since the United States Department of Justice has followed a chromed divestment as part of the remedies in a broader antitrust case against Google, which was found that it had an illegal monopoly in the search.
Federal judge is expected to issue a decision on remedies soon, but experts suggest that a sales order could face years of appeals.
Experts also claim that the higher courts, including the DC and potentially the Supreme Court circuit, tend to be skeptical of forced divestments.
Perplexity’s own financial position is asking questions, mainly because the company was founded only three years ago.
He raised around $ 1 billion of sponsors such as Nvidia and Softbank and was last valued at $ 14 billion.
He has not revealed exactly how he would finance the acquisition, but says that multiple unidentified funds have offered full financing.
The supply scale, more than double its valuation, recalls the high profile of Perplexity but not made to merge with the American Tiktok operations.
The offer also highlights changing dynamics in the way people interact with the web.
The browsers, once considered stable infrastructure, have recovered the strategic importance as more users resort to the tools of AI and chatbot interfaces to obtain information.
By acquiring the three billion Chrome users, perplexity could accelerate the adoption of its IA, Comet, which is currently limited to waiting users and premium subscribers.
For now, it seems that the offer is mainly an advertising trick, and the probability that Google accepts the offer is very low, since Chrome remains an integral part of the Google’s roadmap, including characteristics such as “general description” that provide search summaries generated by AI.
If Perplexity’s offer is mainly a visibility strategy, it may succeed in calling attention to the kite, but it will probably not scratch Chrome’s domain.
Through PakGazette
