Aravind Srinivas, the Indian-origin CEO of AI startup Perplexity AI, has made an ambitious $34.5 billion (over ₹3,02,152 crore) all-cash bid to acquire Google Chrome. The bold move comes amid the growing competition in the AI space, especially as Perplexity AI looks to expand its reach and take on giants like OpenAI.
Founded in 2022, Perplexity AI has rapidly made a name for itself with its AI-powered conversational search engine, which provides real-time, cited answers. The company has raised around $1 billion in funding from major investors like Nvidia and SoftBank, and it was last valued at $14 billion. Despite the offer being far higher than Perplexity’s current valuation, Srinivas believes this acquisition would allow the startup to tap into over three billion users worldwide, significantly boosting its competitive edge.
The bid comes at a time when Google faces regulatory pressure, particularly from the US Justice Department, which is looking to address Google’s alleged monopoly in online search. One of the proposed remedies is forcing Google to sell Chrome, a move that Google has vowed to fight. If the legal process moves forward, it could take years, possibly even reaching the US Supreme Court.
Perplexity AI’s proposal promises to keep Chrome’s underlying Chromium code open-source and invest $3 billion into the browser over the next two years. The plan also includes retaining Chrome’s default search engine settings, aiming to preserve user choice and mitigate competition concerns.
While rivals like OpenAI, Yahoo, and Apollo Global Management have also shown interest in Chrome, industry analysts suggest that the value of Chrome, if sold under regulatory pressure, could be as high as $50 billion, according to DuckDuckGo’s CEO.
Founded by Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski, Perplexity AI is a rapidly growing company based in San Francisco. Srinivas, a Chennai-born IIT Madras graduate, previously worked at Google and interned under deep learning pioneer Yoshua Bengio. Under his leadership, the startup has expanded globally, including a recent partnership with Bharti Airtel, which granted 360 million Indian users free access to Perplexity Pro.
Despite the high-profile bid, many industry experts remain doubtful that Google would be willing to part with Chrome, as it plays a crucial role in the company’s broader AI strategy, including the rollout of AI-generated search summaries.
Image Source: Instagram/Aravind Srinivas
Image Credit: Respective Owner
