Perplexity’s Chrome Tones: Is this the boldest AI ‘land’ grab yet?

If talks ever advance to a term sheet, it could see negotiations between two Tamilians at the helm of American tech - Perplexity’s Aravind Srinivas (right) and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai.

Every few years, a move in technology jolts the market because it is less about what is being bought and more about what the buyer intends to become. Perplexity’s $34.5 billion all-cash bid for Google Chrome is one such move. A three-year-old AI startup valued at $18 billion is trying to take over the world’s most widely used browser, with more than three billion users and roughly two-thirds of global market share. The imbalance is obvious, yet the intent is calculated.

Last year, US District Judge Amit Mehta found that Google had breached antitrust law by preserving its search dominance through a web of exclusive agreements with device makers, browser developers, and carriers — deals that steered users to Google Search by default. The case, brought by the US Department of Justice in 2020, has now moved to the remedies stage, with proposals ranging from forcing Google to divest Chrome to licensing its search data to rivals and curbing its ability to pay for default search placement across devices and browsers.

Leapfrogging to the future

For Perplexity, Chrome offers what no amount of marketing spend or incremental growth could deliver: instant global scale. It is the front door to the internet for billions, and with that, a direct line to the data, traffic, and engagement that fuel today’s most advanced AI models.

Browsers are not just portals to the internet. They are control points. Whoever owns the browser owns the flow of traffic, the behavioural map of how the world searches, clicks, and transacts, and the ability to shape what billions see first.

In an AI-driven internet, that control is more valuable than ever. AI models are hungry for data, and the richest, most real-time data comes from how people actually use the web. Chrome remains the single most powerful source of that behavioural insight. Whoever gets Chrome, if and when Google gives it up, will have an edge in the AI-driven Internet.

Perplexity’s ambition is to make AI intrinsic to browsing, shifting the experience from “click and search” to “ask and get” answers for billions. A Chrome infused with its AI could become the first truly AI-native global browser, redefining speed, relevance, and personalization while providing Perplexity an unrivalled environment for training and improving its models using aggregated and anonymized user behaviour at global scale.

From that vantage point, it could test new AI-driven features, refine its models, and build a stronger ecosystem around its own Comet browser, steering user experience in ways that serve its long-term ambitions.

Chrome’s not just a browser; it’s a tool that gives the owner an unsurpassed advantage

The company knows that owning Chrome would attract political and regulatory scrutiny. Its promises, investing $3 billion over two years, keeping Chromium platform open source, retaining Google as the default search engine, are meant to reassure. Chrome is more than software; it is the primary channel feeding Google’s $300 billion advertising machine through the constant stream of insights on what users search, click, and consume. Without Chrome, Google would lose its clearest window into user behavior and face a far harder fight to maintain its 90 percent share of global search.

If Perplexity succeeds, it would own both the dominant browser and the torrent of search traffic that flows through it. That would give it the leverage to shape defaults, forge deep partnerships across content and commerce, and build AI-driven services that could challenge not only Google Search but every digital gateway where user intent is monetized. Control of the browser layer would also give Perplexity strategic leverage far beyond search — setting defaults, influencing behaviours, and deciding which services gain prominence.

The acquisition would not just be about code or market share. It would also mean inheriting Chrome’s engineering and design talent, a resource that in today’s AI talent wars may be as valuable as the technology itself. For a young company, absorbing that depth of expertise could accelerate innovation by years, giving it a capability advantage that no hiring spree could match.

Perplexity’s bid comes with big risks

The risks are proportionate to the prize. Raising and deploying $34.5 billion without destabilizing its core business would test the company’s resilience. Integrating a platform as vast and complex as Chrome while preserving user trust would test its execution. Regulatory bodies will examine any move that consolidates such power over internet access.

Cultural friction between a nimble startup and a large, entrenched engineering organization could erode the very talent Perplexity hopes to retain. And while AI-powered browsing is an enticing vision, mass adoption, privacy concerns, and governance constraints could limit its reach.

There is also the delicate balancing act of maintaining Google as the default search engine while pursuing other strategic goals. Any shift risks breaching agreements or alienating users. AI integration into browsers remains largely untested at mass scale, and adoption hurdles could blunt its impact.

Even so, this bid marks a strategic turning point. The next great contest in technology will not be confined to cloud infrastructure or AI model training, but at the point where humans enter the internet itself. Control of that gateway will determine who captures the greatest share of AI’s economic potential.

Chrome on sale will have more suitors

Perplexity’s offer is as much a challenge to the status quo as it is a bet on its own future.

Perplexity would not get a free ride even if Chrome were put up for sale. The moment such a possibility emerged, every major AI player including OpenAI would be circling, aware that control of the browser is control of the richest real-time dataset on human behaviour.

If these talks ever advance to a term sheet, it could see negotiations between two Tamilians at the helm of American tech - Perplexity’s Aravind Srinivas and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai - proving that even in a battle to shape the architecture of the Internet, shared cultural roots can sneak in, perhaps over a cup of filter coffee.

Perplexity is no stranger to audacious overtures. Earlier this year, it floated a $50 billion bid for TikTok’s US operations, positioning itself as a solution to Washington’s national security unease over the platform’s Chinese ownership. The offer went nowhere, but it signalled a taste for high-stakes plays and a readiness to step into the glare of geopolitical and corporate crossfire.

But then, who is going to take at face value the assurances of an AI startup willing to pay twice its own valuation - and in cash - for control of the internet’s most powerful gateway?