Perplexity’s bid to buy Chrome is likely more stunt than strategy

The AI search startup Perplexity has tendered an unsolicited offer to buy Google’s Chrome browser for $34.5 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The bid comes as the Justice Department has asked a federal judge to require Google to sell off Chrome to end an ongoing antitrust case. But it’s questionable that a startup valued at half that amount on paper ($18 billion) can afford to buy Chrome; and Google, of course, almost certainly has no intention of selling it—at least not yet. (Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.)

A federal court in Washington, D.C., decided last year that Google holds a monopoly in the internet search and advertising markets and is now considering a Department of Justice demand that the search giant sell off its Chrome browser. Google called the DOJ proposal “wildly overbroad” and part of a “radical interventionist agenda” (language that could draw some negative attention from the Trump administration). 

Perplexity testified in that same case last spring, at which time it expressed a desire to buy Chrome. OpenAI also testified, and its ChatGPT product lead, Nick Turley, testified that his company would be interested in buying Chrome if the court required Google to sell.

Indeed, owning the Chrome browser would immediately catapult Perplexity from being a long shot for winning, placing, or showing in the internet search wars, to being a real contender.

In theory, Perplexity could use the Chrome browser in the same way Google does—as a widely popular front door to its AI-powered search engine. 

“A clever publicity play”

With Chrome, Google fused the ideas of web browsing and web search into one thing that could be done in one place.

Chrome changed the browser’s URL to act as a search bar, too (the “omnibox,” as it’s called). A huge portion of Google searches come from Chrome, and Google makes the lion’s share of its revenues from showing ads around search results. Google can place ads more effectively because of its access to all kinds of user browsing behavior in Chrome.

Perplexity’s bid is very likely something less than a serious strategic gambit. 

“This is a clever publicity play by the startup, but no one should take this stunt seriously,” says Neil Chilson, former chief technologist at the Federal Trade Commission and current head of AI policy at the Abundance Institute.

Chilson adds that the bid will have no bearing on the remedies that Judge Amit Mehta is currently considering in the antitrust case. 

Perplexity is talking like it has every intention of buying Chrome. “Multiple large investment funds have agreed to finance the transaction in full, so we have a wide range of options,” the company said in a statement to Fast Company on Tuesday. “We are confident in our ability to close quickly.” Interestingly, Perplexity says it commits “never to stealthily replace the default search engine of Chrome (Google).”

Perplexity is good at what it does, but still small

Perplexity employs some very talented AI engineers, its “answer engine” product works surprisingly well by most accounts (including mine), and the company has been agile about releasing new products that augment its core service. (It recently released its own browser called Comet.) 

But in the face of Google Search, Perplexity is still small-fry. It serves only a fraction of internet searches and sends only a fraction of the product search referrals that go to brand websites.

Perplexity looks more like a company to be acquired, not like an acquirer. 

Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, reportedly held talks to acquire Perplexity earlier this year, but an agreement couldn’t be reached. It’s likely that other suitors have approached the startup. 

And yet the existing rules of market dominance in tech could be shifting under everyone’s feet—because of generative AI.

During this seminal period in the potentially transformative technology (when the next Googles and Apples may be being decided), optics matter. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas seems to have a keen sense of this. He knows he needs to keep his company’s name in the conversation with other up-and-comers, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, as the so-called AI revolution unfolds. He’s done an admirable job of it—as evidenced by his many podcasts, public appearances, and viral tweets. 

So Perplexity’s Chrome bid may come out of the same playbook. It’s about posturing.

For a company of Perplexity’s stature to convince consumers that it could really be the heir to Google’s search throne, it may want to puff itself up to appear to belong in (roughly) the same weight class as the incumbent. Putting in an offer to buy a key piece of Google’s business may serve that end.