AI start-up makes offer to Google for Chrome

Perplexity could cash in on antitrust ruling

- CADE METZ CECILIA KANG

In an unlikely bid that shows the growing brashness of young artificial intelligence companies, the AI startup Perplexity has made an unsolicited offer to buy Google's Chrome web browser for $34.5 billion.

The tiny company made its offer against the backdrop of a forthcoming antitrust decision against the tech giant. In a US District Court ruling due as early as this week, Judge Amit Mehta could force Google to sell its web browser as a way of reducing the company’s dominance in the internet search market.

The Perplexity chief executive, Aravind Srinivas, said in a letter to Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google's parent company, Alphabet, that its offer to buy the Chrome browser was “designed to satisfy an antitrust remedy in highest public interest by placing Chrome with a capable, independent operator.”

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Perplexity’s offer was previously reported by The Wall Street Journal.