I have a sense this is one of those issues that people don't know how they should feel, but some narrative of how we as enlightened technologists should feel will form.
On one hand, people don't like Google owning chrome as they have a huge influence on open web and they're essentially an ad company
On the other hand, if in the hands of an AI company, this could mean using your data for models, VC incentives, less open in general. Perplexity doesn't have a money printing machine to forever subsidize a browser.
This is not a serious offer. Even if it was, is a low-ball one for a browser like Chrome. (Why did they choose that figure given they know they don't have the money).
Also they do not have anywhere close to having the money or stock value to buy it. So this is just for attention grabbing for the headlines.
These marketing stunts from Perplexity made me stop using their product. For me, it's an indicator that they don't believe in their product, so there's no reason for me to do it either.
My reason is much more petty, but their refusal to allow me to sign-in with either a password+2fa or passkey and instead force me to open my email for a magic link has pushed me away.
NAL, but IMO it's legal & political maneuvering. DOJ asked Judge Mehta to consider forcing divestiture of Chrome after Google was found to illegally maintained a search monopoly. If it's determined the divestiture is feasible, especially with an existing more-or-less "credible buyer" at the ready, it looks executable. The offer is basically crafted to fit the DOJ/regulator concerns, ie everything is build around "least disruptive": keeping Google the default search engine, etc. Furthermore, just by doing this, they are putting ideas out there about what an "acceptable buyer" is and puts a number to the discussion about "what Chrome is worth". Purely remedies chess and an attempt to own the narrative. Google's going to say no, at least as-is, but this certainly throws a wrench in the works. Lots more moves to be made.
For the simple minded among us, can someone explain why this would be worth 34.5 billion dollars? Wouldn't the fork (https://www.perplexity.ai/comet) be sufficient?
"The AI says I should raise $34.5 billion from investors and make a bid for Google's browser."
I wonder if they've thought about what it'll cost to keep Chrome dominant as a platform including the effort that goes into securing it on an ongoing basis!
Perplexity are trying to find their place so they try whatever they can. Web search, shopping search, finance search, browser, deep research, anything. They were first to do a good job on web search but ChatGPT and Claude caught up and now Perplexity, who doesn't have their own family of models like the other two, is shooting in the dark.
If they think it's worth that much, ask yourself about how they plan to profit from it.
Imagine a browser (or any tech) that delivers seamless and undisclosed advertising and narrative through conversational interface. Why wouldn't that be an endgame of LLMs?
A $14B to $18B dollar company offering an all stock deal worth about 2x as much as its market cap.
This isn't a serious offer, its a publicity stunt. Google would effectively own the entire company short of some mind blowing multiple expansion here.
Watch for Perplexity to be raising money in the next 6 months. But given this stunt it looks like they think their growth is over and they've peaked as a company.
I use it for very quick searches much like I would have used Google. Basically gives me the first page of Google results minus sponsored links plus a few-paragraph wiki for whatever.
I have Pro Claude plan, so I use that for deeper research. Not sure there's much difference now that Claude has web search. Perp is slightly more terse and also doesn't expend my tokens for Claude code
Are they out of their minds? How can a tiny startup without their own actual product (nowadays anyone can strap OpenAI/Anthropic API or fork open source models, such as Deepseek, on top of web scraping) buy the largest browser used by billions made by a company making trillions?
31 comments
[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 44.1 ms ] threadOn one hand, people don't like Google owning chrome as they have a huge influence on open web and they're essentially an ad company
On the other hand, if in the hands of an AI company, this could mean using your data for models, VC incentives, less open in general. Perplexity doesn't have a money printing machine to forever subsidize a browser.
It'll be interesting which narrative wins out.
Also they do not have anywhere close to having the money or stock value to buy it. So this is just for attention grabbing for the headlines.
Move along now, nothing to see here.
Don't make using your product annoying.
Ever since deep thinking came out
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/trump-ai-truth-search-per...
I wonder if they've thought about what it'll cost to keep Chrome dominant as a platform including the effort that goes into securing it on an ongoing basis!
Imagine a browser (or any tech) that delivers seamless and undisclosed advertising and narrative through conversational interface. Why wouldn't that be an endgame of LLMs?
This isn't a serious offer, its a publicity stunt. Google would effectively own the entire company short of some mind blowing multiple expansion here.
Watch for Perplexity to be raising money in the next 6 months. But given this stunt it looks like they think their growth is over and they've peaked as a company.
get the money, then turn around and release chromium by Google.
I have Pro Claude plan, so I use that for deeper research. Not sure there's much difference now that Claude has web search. Perp is slightly more terse and also doesn't expend my tokens for Claude code
Maybe Gamestop, PeTA, or Roblox should make an offer next.
I had for quite some time only relied on o3 pro for every query and it always defaulted to web search so hallucination rate was (seemingly) very low.
Now I'm using Claude more and he (it?) needs to be reminded that it he has a web saerch tool but other than that it works great.